I Heart Printing

I really can’t say much more than these images show. The handmade paper is really working out well on these.

But I think this also needs another colour – I would like to print onto the darker brown paper that I made from the recycled cardboard packaging, so would need to pull out the body of the heart, so I set about creating a block , just for solid colour:

I also ran off a few cards on Kraft card – these may make a nice addition to the greetings cards already for sale at The Department Of Something Else.

But it was on the brown paper I really began to enjoy this; laying down a solid block of colour onto rough, soft paper allows for a really visible impression. Then I picked up a damaged sheet of the whiter paper which is much thicker than the brown:

I know this will sound pretty lame, but I did get a bit Homer Simpson over this…

Now if you are one of the few people who do not understand this, go to Youtube and look for Homer Simpson drooling, or just listen here.

I made a very similar noise. I’m going for a shower now.

Ok then, back to work.

I’m using Caligo waterbased inks as usual, magenta and black, mixed a little darker this time as I am expecting the colour to be visibly lighter on the overprinted parts:

My registration jig worked perfectly on these – everyone a winner!

I then went onto the recycled packaging paper…

The results are great – and the white one I drooled over earlier?

I really ‘heart’ printing…

Barefaced Lino #2

These handsome fellows are printed on my first batch of handmade paper and what a delightful pairing it has made! The softness of the paper has allowed a really visible impression on these small additions to my “Barefaced Linos” collection. They are not uniform in size and range from just 20 to 35mm high!

  

  
These are the ones I printed originally in white ink on Kraft card and look excellent in Prussian Blue on the digestive biscut paper!

Barefaced Lino

I have long been fascinated by the facial reconstructions that often appear in the news, showing how a Neanderthal might look, or how closely Tutankhamun resembled his iconic sarcophagus, as well as those ‘cold-case’ revivals where the unidentified severed head that was found in 1903 finally gains a (possible) identity. Technology, craftsmanship, creative licence and a suitcase full of conjecture; my kind of stuff.

I have also visited a number of ossuaries - vaults for the bones of the dead – a very odd idea if ever there was one. You get buried, you become food for worms, then you’re dug up, cleaned off, and your bones are then stacked up on top of everyone else’s. Often anonymously. Probably the most famous ossuary is the Paris Catacombs, where the old quarries beneath the city were used to store the bones from an overfull (and infectious) cemetery, and has been a source of revulsion and fascination since the 18th century.

These images have been lurking around my consciousness (not a savoury place to go after dark!) for a while now, and recently surfaced after watching news reports about racism (the Muamba/Twitter case)  and hearing the presenters inane ‘analysis’ following the report, which ended with the obtuse cliché: “Well, we’re all the same under the skin aren’t we?” (cue Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney singing Eboneeee and Ivoreee…)

Ok, ok, time to get back on track with this post. Whatever you think, we are clearly not all the same under the skin. There is character held within our bone structures, and although technically we consist of all the same elements in pretty much the same composition, our individuality goes right down to the bone. Please consider how your reconstruction might look 2,000 years down the road…

Regular vistors to this blog will be aware that I carry a sketchbook and will draw, doodle, write (and waste time – Mrs. Lestaret!) and skulls have been a regular feature of late. It’s time to do something about that.

After many weeks of almost habitual skull drawings, even when I was intending to draw other things, I made a decision to make a block to see where this may lead. I carbon paper traced the sheet on the right onto an old offcut of lino - complete with drawings from a long abandoned project – and set to work: 

First getting the shapes and eyes generally sorted…

And then adding the nose, teeth and detailing…

And then removing the negative space. It got quite late by this time and I was getting a little tired and distracted, so stopped., but awoke the next morning and run a test print of the block as it was, just make sure I was going in the right direction. This is probably the first time I have printed a block before it was finished!

Printed with white ink on Lavender Colourplan by GFSmith shows that my block is shaping up exactly as I had planned.

The block, fully cut, mounted on thick board to aid consistency of print and positioning…

White ink is not the most solid of colours – I use it more often as a mixer – but gives a sort of transluclent effect on darker stock, this time some recycled kraft card that I had cut down to 6 x 12″ and folded to make a greeting card format.

This has been a very encouraging process. I am pleased with these results and have been sketching and thinking about other approaches, different styles and alternate styles and can see this growing into something a little bigger.

Watch this space…

Tickets Please!

The Lestaret Corporation has recently been granted a franchise on one of the divisions of Hell and as of May 2012 will be issuing tickets for the new system of entry (for a small administrative fee, of course.)  This will involve standing in lots of queues, and the continual listenening to the entire output of Justin Bieber. Not big changes then.

Just to demonstrate the levels of intense toil that goes into producing each ticket, here is a quick overview:

1. Taking reference from a classic format, all measurements were accurately taken.

2. A batch of sturdy card was trimmed to an oversized dimension (10mm all round,) for better handling during printing.

3. A template was created in order to gain an accurate position of the print. The centre was trimmed to show the maximum print area and used to overlay the makeready prints.

4. Printing. Well, not quite that simple. First the type needs composing – Univers 45 and 68 centrally aligned – this took around 45 minutes in all, particularly in the positioning of the type in the chase. This was then printed on the Adana 5/3 in a dark green. A day later, the numbering box was installed and the tickets were sequentially numbered in a deep red.

5. The top and bottom are then trimmed. I set up a temporary jig on my cutting mat to speed this up.

6. The tickets were then perforated using a small perforating wheel bought from a local craft store. Again, a temporary jig was used for this process.

7. Holes were punched with a hand held single hole puncher, using a cardboard jig to ensure consistency of position.

8. Edges removed to enhance the reveal the ticket! 

This is a lot of effort for such a small bit of ‘stuff’ but I like it!

CD Packaging #2

I have been playing Jon’s new CD “…if we run and run” for the last week or so, and needed to put some visuals together for discussion.

I filled quite a few pages with doodles, notes and scratchings, mulling on the lyrics, the tone of the album, and a couple of the tracks that had stood out to me. These two pages show the birth of some of the images that follow.

The first visual was to be printed black only onto recycled board, with the image of the switch heavily ‘screened’ to give a newsprint type effect. I kept coming back to the image of a switch – possibly a visual metaphor – the switch representing choices and decisions that require a human action:

The next visual was another approach to the same idea, this time focusing on a more characterful doorbell, muted colours and subtle type.  All textures printed on plain white matt stock:

The next one gets a different treatment this time. The stone can be representative of the self, lightly bound. It can be seen as a little obsessive too. Again the textures are print effects:

The last one has no central imagery this time. The image is the inside of an old plastic-covered book and suggests self-repair or maintenance. I like the idea that the songs are very intimate – what is usually kept inside becomes the outer presentation. Nice clean linear typography to elevate the design from being too grungy.

I shared these four ideas online with Jon to start a dialogue and find some common ground to develop the design on. I have another non-public blog that I use to share images of work in progress with clients which these were posted up on. The following day, I received this response from Jon:

I absolutely love the stone one. For me it represents all that I have gone through over the last few months. and the fact that it’s cut suggests, to me anyway, that a weight has been removed. I love the simplicity of it, I love the tone and the timbre, and I love the font. it’s beautiful. PLEASE LETS GO WITH THIS ONE! it has an emotional pull for me that is immediate and powerful.

Result! It’s not often it happens when you hit the nail on the head with the first strike.

The stones were shot outdoors under a leaden, overcast sky for neutral, reasonably flat lighting:

I had also created a few others to show at our next meeting, but these are resigned to the ‘designs that never were’ file:

 

 

Work is underway to create accurate artwork whilst Jon finishes compiling the lyrics, credits and tracklisting…

CD Packaging #1

I am currently working on a new CD design project for singer/songwriter Jon Lawrence. You may recall other projects I have done for Jon in recent years – click on the thumbnails below to see more of these.

  

In our initial meeting I was, as usual, given a disc to listen to whist working and we discussed a few things to establish a starting point for the design. This is a great thing about working with musicians, Jon especially so, as he brings vague notions and impressions rather than direct instructions. So, no set format, no theme, no symbolism. Except for one element; Jon mentioned that the album was much more immediate, more ‘up-front’ and raw.

We both said that the standard jewel case did not seem appropriate and recalled previous conversations about the expense of those nice brown recycled card sleeves – not so much the sleeves themselves, but more in the printing and assembly. I suggested that ready-made packs could be purchased and the whole thing could be letterpressed! We discussed this as a possibility, with a linocut design in two colours – making each sleeve a limited edition print also! Jon seemed keen, so I set about putting a couple of  visuals together to show him how this approach may look:

And I also showed a few examples of linocut carving styles:

Over the next day or so I began thinking about this and wondered if I’d been a little too enthusiastic over the letterpress approach; I was keen on the idea, but didn’t want only have this approach on the table. Plus, there were more limitations with this approach than I’d first considered.

I was sketching in my notebook whilst occupying a little ‘dead’ time and hit upon the idea of constructing the pack from a single sheet, and began exploring origami style folds, trying to make a self locking enclosure for the disc. This got stupidly complicated very quickly. I needed to simplify.

Japanese stab binding is a simple, effective and visually attractive form of binding - I have used it many times in my bookbinding projects:

 

So I began by using the general dimensions from existing card pack and digipack formats and some oddments of card and paper. In this first sample, the slot for the disc was not tight enough and it slips out too easily.

This just looks right though – the spine is very slim, but that is something that can be worked around…

And it is the same size as regular card packs.

The second test was a little better, with a snug disc slot and accurate measurements. I also tried using a thicker thread, but although this looks good, it is a bit of a pig to work with. Using the normal bookbinding thread, this simple method takes about three minutes to complete. With the thicker thread that turns into ten minutes as there is much more ‘faffing’ around trying not to sew through the thread and get the thread to lay well on each side.

I deliberately kept to a three hole/five station model to minimise production time. There are more complex and decorative versions of this technique that would be cool but impractical.

Time to get thinking about the graphics…

Something Fishy Going On?

Not really. Just a bit of print frenzy going on! I’m really enjoying the process again!

This card began when I rollered out some very pale and transparent ink directly onto the card, leaving roller marks and  deliberate inconsistencies in coverage. I did not photograph this for some reason.

I set up some wood type again and overprinted the background with a brighter, but still transparent green.

You can see the backgrounds clearer here:

When this was dry I made some adjustments to the type and locked it all back up again. I then mixed up some custardy yellow, also using plenty of transparent extender…

And another then another overprint…

Deliberately out of register to give a slightly 3D effect, but really trying to make the most of the transparency…

A couple of days later I got around to real reason for these prints – a new block purchased from eBay!

This time a very deep red was mixed and the Adana 5-3 was primed and put to task…

That is one hell of a flat fish!

Well? It’s a genuine request!

Let’s Rock!

I have been working on a combined linocut, wood type and metal type print recently. I bought this great little block a couple of weeks ago and decided to give it a go. I made a couple of quick sketches before I started, but quickly got down to carving a  lino block so I could get the first colour down:

The lettering here was traced from a test print I made of my wood type:

And printed in a calm pale blue…

The steamroller block just looked interesting on eBay – I liked the size too – not too tiny, but not so big that I wouldn’t be able to use it alongside type in size of presses I have.

I mixed up a really thick murky green…

And the prints began to emerge…

I set up the rest of the type in Rockwell Bold Shadow – ALL CAPS! The image below shows the type locked up into the forme:

And I mixed an astonishingly vulgar shade of pink too – using plenty of extender to give it some transparency – I wanted it to darken a bit on to of the blue:

I also printed the Lestaret moniker on the back whilst I was at it!

And like kippers in a smokehouse, they hang up to cure!

Yeah, baby! Steam power!

All the Best…

Happy fathers day, Dad!

Colour Blind

This is a new book that I have playing around with over the last few weeks. Nothing serious, but an unwanted ring box was rescued during one of Mrs. Lestaret’s occasional clearouts and had been sat on my desk saying “go on then – do something with me.”

I made a few accordion folded strips to see how long I would need to create naturally falling pages and began thinking about a theme. Being the old romantic (?) that I am, I thought about a pledge of love, poetry to woo the hand of a fair maiden and the like. I was listening to the new album by Steve Earle and believe that his lyrics are amongst the finest, especially in his songs of love, loss and longing.

I had a trawl through his extensive back catalogue and narrowed the choices down to three songs – Valentines Day (a great song for those of us who have failed miserably on this wretched occasion), Goodbye (melancholy, and just a little wistful) and Yours Forever Blue (an apology – enough said.)

I eventually went with the latter, and because the box was green, I went with an overall green tone. Blue would have been a bit too obvious, eh?

The type is set in 12pt IM FEll Double Pica Pro on 18pt leading and in Pantone DS 315-1C.