It was my last letterpress class and even though I felt a little sad that it was over, I am so happy that I feel comfortable using Vandercook Press and printing letterpress prints and cards now and I will keep printing for sure! Thank you so much for reading my class journey, I will keep posting about letterpress every time I have something to share so please look forward to what I will be doing next!

I had another card idea and when I made my plate, I included this idea, too, so I was able to finally print the card…

Mixing light gray by using the Pantone chip chart.

hmm, maybe more white?

The first plate is set. The Vandercook Press needed to be adjusted a lot this time… there are a few places that you have to go into and adjust to set it for proper printing – I could do it all by myself! So proud. (smile)

and just print away…

Mixing second color – I love mixing colors! It’s fun!

and print second color away…

I will share about what I actually printed in the next post – yes, it’ll be available in my shop soon!

Posted under letterpress

I’ve learned a lot in the last class, it was a good class! Nothing new demonstration, but just printing with polymer plates and creating projects, I learned a lot. There are 2 more classes left so everyone started to finish up their own projects and so the press was busy all night.

I mixed Pantone color for the first time. The Pantone book at the school had a little note under the each color on what colors to mix and how much to mix to create the color so I followed the direction.

Tried to make this pretty green.

Take each color based on how much it says to mix.

and mix it together….

It came out nicely!

I printed note cards for gifts, myself, and Randy and me – all A2 flat cards.

This is one of the note cards I printed with letter H:

Love the impression: when using cotton paper, it shows the impression really beautifully! I was staring at them for a while. Can’t wait to print more stuff!

Posted under letterpress

I can’t believe I only have 3 more classes left… I can say that I am more comfortable using Vandercook Press now, from beginning to the end, I can do everything by myself! (well, I’m sure I have a lot to learn still, but I feel like I got the basic of it)

We can now do whatever we want to print, work on our own projects, so I continued printing my holiday card first and some new prints for my shop.

I took wood type blocks and printed “PEACE” on my holiday card — with everything going on in the world, I really wish peace on earth….

Printed on top of my snowflakes linoleum prints from last week:

Printed some more “Live What You Love” in red and blue � Thank you, everyone, the green one is sold out!

Available at my Etsy store.

I ordered 100% cotton paper (means tree-free! I’m so excited about that) and so from here on, I am going to try as eco-friendly as possible with my work and store. These new prints are of course printed on tree-free paper and the paper is made for letterpressing so the impression of the print is more awesome than ever!

Posted under letterpress

Last week, we learned how to die cut with Vandercook Press! I had no idea it can do die cutting so it was surprising and pretty cool!

The school had a few shapes, we tried circle ones, there were rounded corner one, too, but this was the most intriguing one… a die cut for a package box!

You just set it up just like you set up a wood type or metal type on the Vandercook Press:

You don’t have to turn on the power switch to cut, you just run the paper and it die cuts!

Can you see the cut? It also had a scoring line, but due to the Press condition, we couldn’t go too far (it was cutting where it’s not supposed to) so I have to score before I build the box, but how cute would this be for a holiday candy box! I will work on it later and make sure to share it with you here.

I also worked on my second linoleum art: a snowflake!

It took a little bit (and I messed up a little bit, too – but that makes it special, right?) and this is from “the making of”:

Started with white ink – I love snowflakes, I think they are absolutely beautiful and no two snowflakes are the same shape, just like my prints. :)

I printed on color papers: came out nicely.

Added a splash of blue/green:

and printed on white paper, too.

From here, I am adding types and making holiday cards, but I will hold it until it is a holiday time to show you… Please look forward to it!

Posted under art

I have been so busy that I forgot to do my Letterpress Monday yesterday!! Oops. It was canceled last time so it’s been 2 weeks since my last letterpress class and in the meantime, I have ordered my first polymer plate from Boxcar Press! It was recommended by my instructor and turn around was very fast and I had no problem getting my plate, if you are thinking of having your plate made, I recommend Boxcar Press, too.

I ordered 7.5×11 inches sheet with 12-13 projects on it – you can cut it and use it indivisually. You can reuse it as many times as you’d like.

Out of all the projects I made a plate of, I started with a little thing for myself – holiday card back stamp (front will come later) and my note cards. Just so I can practice printing with polymer plate, too.

On Vandercook Press:

You use this grid board – the plate comes with double-sticky tape so you just stick to it. After you are done printing, you can seal it back and save it in the ziploc bag that also comes with the plate for future use.

The cream color paper is for holiday card and the brown paper is for my little notes. To adjust the paper so it prints in center and to adjust the plate to exactly where you’d like to print, it takes time and practice, but once it’s all set, printing is fun and easy!

—–

My classmates were doing their own thing and they gave me their prints so I wanted to share them here.

The school has not only wood types and metal types, they also have lots of decorative wood blocks (and more stuff, I’m sure) and here’s some prints – so pretty!

ohh, I love this guy!

and another classmate was printing a bookplate with linoleum. What a good idea! The owl is cute, too.

I have to plan ahead so I can do as many letterpress projects in 5 more classes… I don’t want it to end, though!

Posted under typography

In the last class, we did something different – linoleum printing! Ohhh, it was fun!

Preparation – you can directly draw on the linoleum or trace something if you want to use certain art. Here, I traced a trumpet art by using a tracing paper. You can buy the linoleum on the board or just the sheet of it. The instructor had a sheet of it for us so we attached the sheet on a wood board with double stick tape before we worked on it.

And you just carve it by using linoleum cutters!

It is softer than wood and easier to carve.

Almost done… I didn’t need all the linoleum so I cut out the rest.

and you just set it on the Vandercook press (You might need to place papers underneath to raise the board a bit) put some ink, and print.

and here it is! My trumpet print!

From here, I tried to experiment 2 color printing. I made a little change on the linoleum and so the first color would show though as highlight or shadow. And take the first print and go through the press one more time.

It came out nicely! I did one with orange, one with olive green.

I also wanted to incorporate some letters so when I got home, I took my stamp set and created these prints.

“Kind of Blue” (inspired by Miles Davis album)

“I heart Jazz”

What do you think?

I want to make more lino prints now!

Posted under art, typography

Last Thursday, I learned how to do typesetting with small metal types. It could be a very tedious work, especially, if you are typesetting a whole book in 10-12pt or something (oh boy, I don’t know how long that would take!) I really like typesetting it by hand, though, I guess I’m on computer too much.

This is a composing stick. You use this to assemble pieces of metal type into words and lines.

This is a whole set of “Garamond 24pt”:

We each got a cheat sheet / Layout of the case. This helps a lot when you are setting a type one by one:

My work in progress. You start from the left bottom side, the letters are all up side down, but this is the top of the line. Yes, very tricky, at first:

As the composing stick gets full, you place them into the tray and keep setting the types:

When you are done with typesetting, bring the tray and slide everything onto the press (so it won’t break or anything):

And you set the metal types tight by using those bars so they won’t move around and you are ready to print!

Here is what I printed this week – A birthday card with a little bit of DIY:

You just have to circle one that you think the birthday girl/boy looks! You can circle multiple if you’d like, and add more to it, make it funny, make it cool… it’s going to be personalized by you.

I am thinking to giveaway this letterpress card for my fellow readers today! Just leave your comment here by Wednesday, October 29th, and I will randomly select a winner. I will ship it Internationally if you are not in the US and you won the giveaway so please don’t worry.

It is an A2 folded blank card (4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches) printed on 157lb rough surface white paper with an A2 envelope.

Thank you!

Posted under typography

Last Thursday, we learned how to make a polymer plate and how to print from the plate, how to do 2 color print.

Here’s what a polymer plate looks like (I had no idea it was that thin!) – You use it with the board underneath:

I also learned about how much ink to use, I kept putting too much ink and that wasn’t good… You really don’t need that much ink to print.

So we have no class next week and we have to order the plate by following class so we can start printing from the plate – I have so many ideas and things I want to print, I have to work on it! You create a digital file and then order the plate.

For the rest of the class, I used wood type and printed some posters:

“Live What You Love” Green:

“Live What You Love” Black:

After reducing the ink (I had too much at first), the “U” showed an interesting texture:

And then, I had 30 more minutes to play around so I just took letter “S” and did some fun with it:

So I’ll come back to Letterpress Monday in 2 weeks!

Posted under typography

I had such a fun time at my first lettepress class last Thursday. I could have kept printing all night long!

Here, I’m gonna briefly explain what I’ve learned with pictures I’ve taken during the class. This was the first class so it was an introduction to letterpress, how to set type using wood types, and how to print by using Vandercook Press.

So many wood types! I love the big ones:

We started picking up letters that you want to print.

It’s so fun just looking at them.

And then, we use these

and these to set type in the Vandercook so the type won’t move around while you are printing. You need to measure the empty spaces and get the perfect ones to go along – lot of math, lot of eyes, it is like a puzzle, too.

On the press. When you set the type, you also tighten from the side and the bottom by using the tool:

It is hard to work with mirrored letters, actually, the instructor suggested that you use mirror and make sure it reads right.

When you are ready to print, you put ink on the roll, and go back and forth to have the letters inked.

Vandercook Press. You set the paper and grab the big handle and just roll…

and you have your letterpress prints!

Here, I printed twice by just moving a little bit so it overlaps:

Other pretty letterpress prints on the wall:

Can’t wait for next class!

Posted under typography