The Letterpress Rocks!

Today was my first day working on a letterpress, a form of printing in which set type is inked, then impressed directly onto the printing surface.Letterpress is the oldest form of printing, but its now used primarily for limited-run prints, posters, and books. I'm really sleepy right now from standing and carving almost all day, but I wanted to share this very cool process via photos. Today was Day 1 of my class at Kala Art Institute, where I am an Artist in Residence.

The piece I am working on is a nude body, and the piece I will start tomorrow is of a really great writer who came in and out of my life...anyway, he inspired me to make this drawing, I really like the geometry of it and I rarely do images of men, so I thought I would give it a shot.

Click on the images to see them larger.

Here is my drawing on the left, and the carved linoleum block on the right. I spent about 3 hours carving the linoleum block.


Here is how my first color printed on the paper, notice it prints backwards. Since this is a relief print, I print the first color, and then I use the same block to do my 2nd color. You can see my 2nd color on the top. I am using red ONLY to proof my image, which means only as a test. I will be running a black.


Here is a closeup of the block I used to print. Notice I've carved out more... that's because I will use this same block to print my 2nd color. It's called Relief Printing.


Here is the piece I will work on next. The first thing I did was take a copy of my sketchbook in inverse, so that I can see my lines with more ease. The copy is on the left. Then, using carbon paper, I transfered the image onto my linoleum block (see right), and then using a sharpie, I outlined the entire piece. Tomorrow I will cut this block and do a 1 color print on the Letterpress.

Yay! Letterpress RULES!!! Stay tuned for the finished pieces....