Letterpress Happy Hour - July 25th, 2011

After the last busy, busy happy hour with all the presses pressing, we had a much quieter happy hour last night. Kendra, Miranda, and Molly were all there to set type.
Miranda was there with Baby Eliot setting type for his birth announcement. Being the smarty pants that she is, she had already printed most of the announcement design before Eliot arrived. Now she's just working to fill in all his birth date details. He was a welcome addition to the happy hour crew!
Molly was a student in a recent Using Photopolymer on the Letterpress workshop so she got a crash course in typesetting last night. She was a natural!
Kendra was hard at work setting type to print a short poem. Kendra is a new member at Pyramid and she's been taking screenprinting lessons with Becca. We were happy to steal her for an evening in the letterpress studio.

All these photos were taken with the Hipstamatic app for iPhone during our Hipstamatic vs. Instagram discussion. We like mixing new technology with our old school hobbies at letterpress happy hour!

Tip #12

While in a perfect world, this wouldn't be necessary, a recent experience has convinced me that when planning to print in a light color, it is probably best to do a preemptive cleaning before inking up.

I was trying to print my logo on some yellow envelopes. Lately, I've been taking to adding just a little bit of ink of the same color to create an effect in between doing a blind deboss and inking in a darker color. So, I inked up with a small amount of yellow.... 

The rightmost print was my first run. Obviously, someone had left the press with a good amount of blue or green ink on the rollers. So, after a round of cleaning, I was able to to print with a very light yellow (middle print). In the end, I wanted something a little less subtle and added some more yellow (left print). If I had done the round of cleaning before inking up, I would have saved time and ink.

Of course, if the person before me had cleaned up properly, this wouldn't be an issue.........

In the studio...

Heather Childs was in recently to print some note cards as a thank you gift for the hostess of a pre-wedding luncheon earlier this week. Here's a photo of the card with its pretty lined envelope:

Love the matching tissue paper as well!

In the studio...

Earlier this week, Beck was in the studio printing coasters for a DC Abortion Fund benefit. Aren't they beautiful?

She printed these onto chipboard on the Universal and then cut them out using a handy Martha Stewart circle cutter!

Photos from Artscape

Just wanted to share a couple photos from our Pyramid Letterpress booth at Artscape this weekend (taken by Steve)!

Here's a shot of the whole crew (minus Steve). From left to right is Amelia, me, Melanie, Moira and Sarah:

Here's Moira, Amelia and me, as we're hustling to finish our booth set up:

And here's our lattice display, featuring selected works:

Can't wait til next year!

Artscape!

This weekend, a gaggle of Pyramid Letterpressers will be selling their work at Artscape's DIY section in Baltimore! Amelia, Moira, Melanie, Sarah, Steve (who printed our sign above) and I will be taking turns manning the booth over the 3-day fair. Come visit (Booth C15) and see what's kept the studio so busy lately.

Festival Hours:

Friday July 15, noon - 10pm
Saturday July 16, noon - 10pm
Sunday July 17, noon - 8pm

Hope to see you there!

Happy Hour 7.11.11

Great Happy Hour last night... I think we set a record: all 4 working press (including the little Vandercook 0 proof press) were in use!! I don't think I've ever seen that before! 

Here's a shot of everyone in action:

Beck's project for the night was printing a poster for a fundraiser event for the DC Abortion Fund:

I can't believe I forgot to take a photo of the finished print!

Aly was working on some personal stationery for her and her husband. I liked the effect of the hand-inking:

Newcomers Eric Kerby and Lindsay Block experimented with typesetting for the first time and then printed on the Vandercook 0 (they had taken my Photopolymer class last month):

 

Fellow Photopolymer classmate Laura McLean did the same:

Here are Laura's prints... really impressed with the way she was able to ink so cleanly and register so nicely!

Lauren Emeritz printed some business cards on the C&P. She also brought in this ingenious drying rack that she made at home:

Using Beck's hot pink ink, Erika Pfeiler printed some note cards:

And lastly, here's a photo of my hand-inked prints of my very first linocut!

I had an awesome time and hope everyone else did too! Next Happy Hour is on Monday July 25. Hope to see you there!

New cabinet!

Funny how things work.... On Sunday, I went with some volunteers (Bob Cmarik, Lauren Emeritz and Eric Karlins) to go pick up a donated "freestanding platen press." I pictured something like this:

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a tabletop platen press - and in very poor condition:

Since we already have 3 tabletop presses that still require work, we declined the donation. We ended up taking something that is actually more useful - an empty type cabinet to house our various loose drawers.

An action shot of Bob and Eric loading it into Bob's truck:

And the cabinet in it's new home:

(Still could use a little elbow grease to clean it up a bit!)

Thanks again to Bob, Lauren and Eric for their help!

Happy Hour 6.16.11 (Featuring Rainbow Roll)

Some photos from Happy Hour a couple weeks ago....

Dawn and Erika hard at work setting type:

Here's what Aly was working on:

And Lauren's project of the night (printed on the C&P):

 

We actually inked up the Universal with a rainbow roll, but unfortunately my camera died before I could take photos. Luckily, Aly took some shots with hers. Here's her type locked up. Pretty colors...

And her prints:

Happy Hours in July are going to be on Mondays. Hope to see you there!