1000 Woodcuts: April 2017

Friday, April 21, 2017

The case of the case

A little something for my Baren friends

I am coordinating Barenforum.org's Exchange #72 and decided to make some glorified paper holders for my fellow printmakers. This way all the prints are nice and neat in a "keepable" folio. Why not?!

Incidentally coordinating an exchange is most exciting and probably a lot of work but the good kind of work. The coordinator gets to see all the images first hand and often gets extra prints and cool cards and notes along with the prints.

Anyhow, here is the case construction in pictures for anyone who wants to make their own. I got the design from a book-binding book I own (one of many) and modified it to hold the 30 prints of this exchange.

neat linen paper

start out with clean sheet

a couple of prototypes

winning design cut in matboard
serves as a template

31 times cut along the border

cut pattern

few folds with a bone folder

folding

all ready to glue

I buy glue by the gallon!

some inserts to stiffen up the folder

covered up in matching paper

burnishing with bone folder

back finished

another insert for the front flap

brushed glue with sponge brush

folded and burnished

inner pocket for the prints

final touch!

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Friday, April 7, 2017

Advancing on Two Fronts, Must Be Spring!

Energy! Two Studio Tricks

I love it when I'm full of energy...mostly because some (other) times I have to "make" myself work, ups and downs, you know...

Anyhow, I am fully enjoying a flurry of self-inflicted activity, and making progress on a long project and a short-ish project.

The Long: Ghost Town

About a week ago I finished carving not only the 20 small woodcuts for the Ghost Town project but also a medium size View block. The 20 4x6 inch blocks are ready to print and so I started mulling how to make a big project not so big. Turns out, a sheet of 22x30 inch paper will print 9 at a time with generous margins.

I have printed multiple blocks before, all this trick necessitates is a "jig" that holds the blocks in place while a large sheet of paper is placed on a few blocks simultaneously. The "lock" (in letterpress called a chase) has to be slightly lower than the blocks so that I can ink away without removing the blocks each print. I construct these from foam-board, mat-board and/or gator-board, whatever thickness combination gives me the ideal height to hold the blocks in place just above the jig surface.

Here are pictures, better than descriptions!

First laying out the blocks and finding the spacing

Some calculations on the sizes of spacers needed
(I'm good at math!)

Spacers cut on left, glue and square ready

I place the blocks as I go to make sure they fit

Each block held at the right height by gator-board

Presto! The completed chase, blocks in place
Ink and paper required, After the blocks are printed
I can trim the paper to size

The Short: Wings Exchange, the Flying Maple Seeds

Also made the final adjustments on the Seeds are Sown, Life is Grown print for the Barenforum.org 72nd print exchange. I will detail the complete process in next post, but here are the photos and the video:

First vs second proofs

block and print

Last few details and cleaning up
require my magnifying lamp

Detail of my tiniest tool doing some
delicate carving