Let the Printing Games Begin

Ahhh...the scent of printers' ink and press wash....nothing quite like it. The plates arrived and after checking them over, I cut them apart and started planning the printing. I decided to print the full page images first, and spent the rest of the afternoon cutting up paper. I found there was only just enough, as after ordering, I had decided to include an extra image. Oops! I shall have to be extra careful. 

The plates for the images have some larger solid printed areas which made adjustments necessary. My old table-top Craftsman press was built as a jobbing press, for printing small jobs such as tickets, and invitations. Because of its clamshell action, it is not ideally suited for printing large solid areas, not usually an issue for me. So for these images, I had to make several adjustments to rollers, ink and packing in order to get the solid black areas to print well. I then had to print with my full weight on the handle to get enough pressure. I printed dry on this handmade 30 gsm Japanese paper, as I didn't want to spoil the beautiful surface by dampening it. Anyway, the alterations worked. Looking at the handle of this press, which has been welded  at some time in its career, my guess is that I'm not the first to throw my full weight on it. I just hope it holds out.

The text printing went well, the damp paper gives a lovely crisp impression and again, as this was the Griffen Mill handmade paper I proceeded extra slowly and carefully. This paper has a watermark in the corner of each sheet, with the letters GM, the infinity sign (to indicate its archival status) and the initials MG for Mike Gibbs, the papermaker. I love the thought that I'm making a book with paper made by a real person, a person I have actually met, and that the paper could last for hundreds of years. I have a bible dating back to 1589, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It is beautifully printed, the presswork is amazing and although it is pretty beaten up, still an object of my admiration for the skill that went into making the paper and printing it all those 400+ years ago.

Because the paper had been dampened I let it dry off a little and when it showed signs of curling, finished the drying process between blotters under a light weight.

         

 During the time I was printing, my leather arrived! I had chosen it from a swatch on a card, so was not really surprised to find that it was slightly different in colour from what I had expected. One batch of leather never dyes the same as the next, it's a fact of life. This skin was a little brighter and redder than I expected, but still a very nice skin, as you can see. 

And so to Text...Layout, that is.

Having completed the five full-page images (yes, I'm saving two as a surprise), I'm now in a position to lay out the text properly. I should mention that way back last summer, when I was searching for a suitable paper, I did a very rough layout calculation to ascertain the number of pages (and the amount of paper) that I would need. I ordered the paper to be custom-made at Griffin Mill (see Paper Trails) and it is now sitting under my bed, well-matured by now.
          I always make a rough mock-up of the book, starting with the number of pages I think I will need. This book came out to about thirty-six pages (some of which are blank), that is, eighteen leaves. I decided on three sections of twelve pages. This is not the usual layout. I keep the sections fairly small as the binding works better, rather than having a few large (i.e. fat) sections. Making a mock-up shows where adjustments need to be made, I print out the computer layout and images, and stick them into the folded pages, and move them about as necessary. Apart from the text pages, you have to allow for half-title, title page, frontis, business info (ISBN, copyrights, press info, acknowledgements, colophon, limited edition and signature info, table of contents, bibliography - mix and match as applicable).

It is important before designing the book to take into account the number of illustrations and where they will appear in the text, so the book is balanced. It can look odd to have a whole bunch of illustrations in one part of the book and none in another. (Seems obvious, but inevitably you find lots of ideas for certain parts of the text and none for others.)
          I had already decided on the font I would be using, Brioso Pro (see Prince of Fonts),and firstly tried a traditional layout, aligned to the left like a formal poem, with any extra words that wouldn't fit moved to the next line down, with an indent (below, left in the photo). 
I didn't like the look of this, it seemed rather lifeless and uninteresting.

One of the problems with a miniature book is that when you use small font sizes, you lose the beauty of the letterforms and it is difficult to read. The text is after all in 
many books the most important thing about it. Illustrations, paper, binding are there to support the text, so I use a slightly larger size than you might expect, and in this case I'm using 11pt for the body of the text. I then decided to play around with the words, to make them visually more lively and interesting, to match their meaning. Sometimes you can draw attention or contribute to their meaning by the way you arrange them on the page. This includes keeping certain words together, and sometimes emphasizing them by giving them more space, as I have done with this 'siren-song' verse.I laid it out as if I were doing a piece of calligraphy, and for me this works better than the formal arrangement. The photo on the right  also shows again the trial printing I did, using a polymer plate on the handmade paper. So all the image and text files have been sent off to Boxcar Press for processing into photo-polymer plates, and should take about a week to come back to me - Canada Customs permitting. 


And now a treat, a new online exhibition of artists' books, "Canadian Women Artists' Books: The Creative Codex and its variants" from the Bruce Peel Special Collections Library at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. Feast your eyes on these gorgeous books!

Etruscan Light at the end of a 'Tormented' Tunnel

          So, the polymer plates arrived on the Monday before Christmas, and I prepared some paper on Tuesday evening ready for printing trials on Wednesday. The preparation consisted of cutting the trial papers to size, labelling them (very important) and layering same between sheets of damp blotting paper so that the paper picks up enough moisture to feel cold to the touch, but is not visibly wet. Leaving overnight or for a few hours gives the moisture time to even out so the sheet is uniformly damp. It will print very much better, more evenly and darker using less pressure than if printed dry. After a few prints on practice paper I printed the image 'Tormented'... onto some Torinoko Lightweight Japanese paper (from McClaines) and it printed very well. I had anticipated some difficulty with the solid black areas (the falling figure looks a little concave on the plate) but it was fine. I used a fairly hard packing, as I didn't want the image punched into the paper too hard.
          I next printed the plate of trial text in different sizes of Brioso Light onto the Griffen Mill handmade paper, and was very pleased with the result and glad I had chosen the Light version. You can never really know until you try it. I'll probably use the 17pt size on the title page as I think it rather handsome. 

  I then experimented with various Japanese papers, Akua colors and pochoir, using brayers instead of brushes. With my previous use of this method, the repetitive motion gave me severe shoulder and neck pain, and started my quest for an alternative method of obtaining colour prints, hence the foray into woodblock and wood engraving. I intended to use some small brayers and cut some Mylar stencils. I then had to break off for Christmas preparations.
          After the break, I tried out the stencils with brayers, and found that the surface of most of the Japanese papers was not sufficiently sealed (not sized enough) to take the action of the brayer and a fairly stiff ink. The fibres 'picked' with just one layer of ink. For use with a brayer (roller) the ink has to be of a stiff consistency otherwise it doesn't coat the surface of the brayer evenly and slides about on the ink palette. I tried one western paper, a Zerkall book wove in a soft white colour, which worked well, but I disliked the appearance of it next to the Griffen Mill handmade text paper. Also, the coloured inks always look better on a white paper. So where am I now?

          Some months ago, I obtained samples of a lovely range of Japanese papers, thin and translucent, in various colours. They were truly beautiful, but at the time I couldn't see how they would work with my colour woodblock ideas. A couple of days ago, during my research on sirens for one of the other images ("..softly whispering their siren song"..), I came across some pictures of ancient (BC) Etruscan vases, and light dawned. The Etruscans were the people of an ancient civilization thought to predate the Romans, and they occupied part of the area of Italy now known as Tuscany. How very appropriate, I thought. I have no idea if Leonardo actually would have seen these ancient pots, but I like to think he may have known of them. Here are some examples:
The Etruscans decorated their vases in various tan and biscuit shades with black, and sometimes dark blue and maroon. I could achieve this elegant and sophisticated look using the coloured papers. I tried the "Tormented.." plate, printing dry, and love the look, it opens up all sorts of possibilities for the other images, and will set the character for this book. It is a break-through moment for me, as I have been endlessly obsessing about the 'how' and now I can concentrate on the 'what', knowing how it will appear.


Here are the prints drying on the line (an idea I took 
from various other printmakers, including Sue Woollatt and Andy English - thanks guys). I also show some of the prints on the Bicchu torinko paper from the Japanese Paper Place in Toronto. They are handmade, and dried on wooden boards, which gives them a little texture and character.
          The prints are not quite done, as there is still another experiment I have to do, but that will be in another blog post, when the material I ordered in November finally arrives - good old UK Post Office. Well, that's quite enough excitement for this week.