animate this!

PS – the Potomac Hunt Races are May 20th! Put on your fancy hat and go!

Turkish evil eye with wishbone charm and glass beads

I gave her ole evil eye…

When I was in Istanbul a few years ago for work, I bought a handful of evil eye charms. I had the super talented Jodi Bloom of So-Charmed make one of the larger charms into a necklace for me, and I gave another of the large ones to my sister Meghan.

This Christmas Meghan asked me to make her charm into a necklace, so I took inspiration from Jodi’s work, went to Beadazzled, and set to work on trying my hand at jewelry-making.

I simply used jump rings and headpins to assemble the existing parts, so it was a pretty low degree of difficulty, but nevertheless I’m rather pleased with the result. And Meg likes it, which is the best part.

Keep Calm and Carry On (Luggage) - A2 greeting card in white

Tuesday night I used the letterpress studio on my very own (first time renting solo!) and printed some proofs of the new photopolymer plates I had made. I made two greeting cards and then tested Garrison‘s idea to letterpress print a QR code. I’m happy to report that the cards came out nicely and the QR code works!

I plan to list my cards on Etsy in order to gauge consumer interest. I like the Snowfall chart on the bright white paper, though I might want to play with the ink colors. I think the Keep Calm would be more fun on colored paper with contrasting ink. I have to say I’m really proud of my Keep Calm luggage idea — I’ve never seen anyone make this version (and there are many versions of this poster). If people seem to like the design, I might screenprint it onto tote bags or t-shirts.

Snowfall chart (my design) as a foldover A2 card. Black ink on bright white paper.

I love the tactile, letterpressed detail of the high-tech QR code.

What I also need to do is find a better way to photograph these cards. I’m open to ideas…

Erin and I help a visitor try his hand at letterpress. (Photo from WashingtonCityPaper's Flickr photo stream, taken by Rachel Carrier.)

DIY Tchotchke, brought to you by the letters P and A

I dressed warmly and so I didn’t mind the cold. I really enjoyed working the booth. And when my shift was over, I got to check out all the awesome and inspiring vendors. I got a few small things — a foxy tee from Gnome Enterprises and an embroidered bracelet for myself (I think the vendor was Berkley Illustration), and a couple of gifts for friends (Girls Can Tell, Jenny Jen42). I also saw some shops that I may patronize in the future. I liked Elizabeth Graeber‘s illustration of the fox at the bar, but it only exists as the cover of a book about cocktails, and I wasn’t so into the book itself.

The two shops that really caught my eye were:

a monster who bites - from Monstertrocity

Smoke Signals

The prints dry after their first run (in plum).

Our plate on the Vandercook for first proofs.

We printed 100+ pages in two colors, which we accomplished over two different nights. The first night we printed the plum color, which was the entire photopolymer plate minus the word “FEBRUARIUS,” and last night we printed that in a light blue color. So fun! Next week all the calendar designers will gather to punch holes in the paper and tie the calendars together with ribbon. Assemble to assemble!

I heart how our month turned out. See a sneak peek (along with months April and October) at the Pyramid Atlantic Letterpress blog.

Printed on Crane's Lettra 110 lb. paper in fluorescent white.

On Monday night at Letterpress Happy Hour I printed the type that I had set at my first happy hour. This was my first time locking up type for printing, and Julia Louie was a big help! She took a great photo of the locked type (though I ended up later removing the ornaments in the corners because they looked too cheesy).

A variety of paper weights and colors (all Lettra paper).

I made all my prints on the Vandercook press. This was another chance to learn more about the different paper weights I’d acquired as samples. Of course, with the different weights, I had to adjust the amount of packing behind the paper. I actually really liked the double-thick paper in ecru — unfortunately I didn’t get a really good print on that paper.

I also learned that there are almost always typos in the first run. I printed a test print and then Julia told me to carefully proof the text itself — sure enough, I had a “u” in place of an “n” and a “q” instead of a “p.” I also decided to add a period after the first sentence (not really a typo but an editorial change of heart). So I had to loosen the quoin in order to remove the imposter characters and replace them with the correct ones.

Printed on double thick ecru white paper. Note how the period character wasn't flush with the rest of the type.

I’m not sure what exactly to do with these but I’m thinking to make a fold-over card or two and maybe crop one and put it in a little frame.

Waiting for the duck.

Last Thursday night I went to the Screenprint Society happy hour at Pyramid Atlantic. I’m a total newb at screenprinting, but that’s ok — they welcome beginners at this happy hour.

Let’s back up a few hours: before going to the happy hour, I needed to acquire some basic materials for screen printing. So at lunchtime I pedaled (in a pencil skirt and heels, no less) to Utrecht and American Apparel to get the following:

• masking tape
• acetate sheets (transparencies)
• newsprint paper
• t-shirt to print on

<rant>
Once I got to happy hour I noticed something: the $20 American Apparel shirt I purchased has a tear at the seam of one sleeve. I am so peeved! A $20 t-shirt should not be falling apart before I wear it. American Apparel = FAIL. This is my last American Apparel purchase. Next time, I’ll try getting my t-shirts from Alternative Apparel. On their site, basic tees are also expensive, but I just found a site that sells them at a discount based on quantity. For example, a basic crew is $20 on the Alternative Apparel site, but Blankstyle.com has similar tees for half that price ($7.49 apiece if one ordered 12 shirts).
</rant>

Making the screen

• The first step was to spread a thin layer of photosensitive emulsion on a stretched screen, and leave it to dry.
• Once that dried, I needed to expose the emulsion against my design on the exposure unit. I was supposed to bring my image printed on a sheet of acetate. Our printer, however, is not online at present (and I should mention I waited until the last minute to print this) and so it was a struggle just to get it to print the image on regular paper. Even this was larger than I intended. So Micah showed me the super-secret/messy way to make a screen from a regular sheet of paper. First, we needed to make the image the correct size, so we used the old-school method of a copy machine to make a copy at 80% of the original. Then, we put the printed image (on 8.5 x 11″ copy paper) on the glass plate of the exposure unit and rubbed vegetable oil all over the paper. The oil made the white part of the paper translucent, so that light would pass through it.
• I then put the prepared screen (emulsion side down) on top of the oiled image. We exposed the screen for less than a minute. Once the screen was exposed, I didn’t need my oily artwork any more.
• I rinsed the screen to remove the unexposed emulsion, which left a stencil of my ducks and goose on the screen. I placed it in front of a box fan to dry.
• Last, I used masking tape to cover up the areas of the screen that were not covered with the emulsion (but were not part of the image). This included the area of the screen outside of where I applied emulsion, as well as the tiny, tiny holes that appeared around the design. If I hadn’t taped over those holes, I would have ended up with little paint specks around my fowl.

Staging

• I put my screen inside the hinged table clamps, which allow you to lift the screen and have it return to the exact same spot.
• Micah showed me a trick that keeps the t-shirt securely in place when lifting the screen after printing — we used spray mount to adhere the inside of the shirt to a flat piece of chipboard. The spray mount will wash off when the shirt is laundered.
• Yvonne (a friendly screen printer with more experience than me!) helped me with the next part. We taped one side of a piece of acetate to the table so that we could run a test print on it and then line the t-shirt up underneath the acetate so that the print would be exactly where I wanted it to appear on the shirt. Once I had the shirt in place, we pulled back the acetate so it was out of the way. I could then begin printing.

duck, duck, goose

Printing

• Ink: I choose a bright yellow ink (for ducks, it seemed cute!) but Yvonne and Marty told me that yellow is the most transparent ink, and since my shirt was plum colored, I’d need to add some white paint to the yellow in order to make it a bit more opaque. So I mixed some white ink in with the yellow.
• With the screen propped up so it wasn’t directly on the t-shirt, I applied ink across the top of the screen, and used the squeegee to pull the ink across the screen (towards me). This is called flooding.
• Once the screen was flooded with ink, I removed the prop so that the screen was flush against the t-shirt. I pulled the squeeze across the screen a few times to force the flooded ink onto the shirt.
• Then, I lifted it up, et voila! The design had printed rather nicely onto the shirt.

Goose!

Cleaning up

The last step is, of course, to clean up, but I have to say it’s much easier to clean up in screenprinting than it is in letterpress. I didn’t reclaim my screen (that is, wash out the emulsion to use another time with a different design) because I thought I might want to print more of this design in two weeks. So all I really had to do was wash the paint off my screen, the squeegee, and the container and spatula I used to mix the paints. The paint we use is water-based so it washed away very easily.

Final step: Heat-proofing

With the water-based paint, I had to heat-proof my shirt so that the paint wouldn’t just wash away the first time I laundered it. To do this, I waited until the next morning so that I could be sure the paint was completely dry, and then I used a hot iron on it for about 3 minutes.

And that was my first screenprinting adventure! I definitely plan to return.

Here's February from last year's calendar. Photo by Aly Hurt.

I’m really excited about working on the month of February, and not because it’s my birthday month (actually, I hate having my birthday in February). I’m excited because there are cool things in February like groundhogs, and hearts, and best of all, leap year! That’s right — 2012 is a leap year. I don’t know yet what that might mean for the design, but I just feel that February is rife with possibilities.

Happy happy.

The front 'cover' of my first drop-spine box.

Cute, right?

I chose the colors to match the book, and the polka dots match the lining.

• I really need to mix some methyl cell into the PVA to slow down the drying time of the glue. I have some but I haven’t used it yet and I found that with a project like this, with large surface areas to glue, the PVA by itself does dry too fast.
• I need eight pieces of cut book board, not seven. I didn’t realize at first that the tray has a bottom separate from the back ‘cover.’ Structurally, it’s probably unnecessary, but it’s easier to cover with the paper and book cloth if they are two separate pieces.
• I need to think of the rectangles in 3D — that is, take into account the thickness of the board when determining dimensions. The four sides of the tray need to fit together and yet all be supported by the bottom of the tray. Therefore, the tray must be .2″ wider and higher than the lengths of the sides. This time, I ended up with an extra lip (see diagram) that I had to cut and then sand down.


Left: the sizes of the pieces I cut, laid out. Right: the sizes of the pieces I cut, assembled, bird's eye view.

• The top and bottom ‘cover’ should be a little larger than the bottom of the tray so that it looks more like a hardcover book with the covers extending past the book block.
• Next time, instead of having the paper overlap the edge of the book cloth on the front cover, I am going to try to line them up side by side. The reason for the this is that the paper I used was rather thin and it shows the seam of the thicker book cloth beneath it.
• I need to make sure not to have the tiny Paper Source logo in the bottom corner of the paper show in the visible parts of the box. Whoops.
• When making a book, the book cloth/tape you use on the inside of the spine can be a little sloppy, since the book block will cover it. Not so with this box — the inside spine is clearly visible when the box is open. Therefore, next time I want to make sure that the paper is cut nicely and extends fully from top to bottom.

Now I’m excited to make my next box even better! The next one will be for the little Keep Calm clutch I just finished today. Taking my notes above into account, I have recalculated the dimensions of the rectangles I need to cut. They are:

• 1″ x 6″
• 1″ x 6″
• 1″ x 4.5″
• 1″ x 4.5″
• 6″ x 4.75″
• 6.25″ x 5″
• 6.25″ x 5″
• 1″ x 6.25″

That's me, carefully hand-inking my handmade plate on the Vandercook

Last Monday I went again to Letterpress Happy Hour at Pyramid Atlantic. Julia organized a special project for us: making our own photopolymer plates. It was so fun!

Platemaking

My sketch was of a very fat pony under a leafless tree with one lone apple on the ground before him. One of the few things I draw by hand is this little fat pony, so I started there, and then I was inspired by Erika‘s trees, so I added a tree next to the pony. And then I realized he was just like my mother’s pony, Tony, who stops under every apple tree to check the ground for fallen apples. So I gave him a big red apple on the ground. Note: Tony is not this fat.

1. First we scratched our sketch (positive image, or WYSIWYG) in the negative paper. It was some kind of clear plastic sheeting with a coat of black ink. Julia is going to find out exactly what the material is called.
2. Then, we put the negative against a piece of undeveloped photopolymer and used the printshop’s exposure unit to expose UV light to the photopolymer through the scratched-off portion of the negative.
3. Next we used toothbrushes to gently scrub away the unexposed polymer under running water. This took about 10 minutes. When we finished, the plates were clear plastic where unexposed, and yellow and raised where exposed.
4. Finally, we hardened (fired?) the plates by exposing them once more to UV light.

Printing
At this point I had my plate. We inked the plates by hand to save on clean-up time (plus, this way, we could each choose different colors). I actually sneakily added a second color, so the apple alone I inked red and the pony and the tree were brown.

I made a few prints first on the proofing press, but I found it hard to peel the paper off the inked plate without smudging it. I then made a couple of prints on the Vandercook, and I liked these better. I also used this opportunity to test out some of my Lettra samples.

Last night I cut down two of my “fat pony” prints into folded 4-bar cards.

*N.B. This happy hour did include beers, and chocolate cookies! Extra happy!