Thank You!

Another foray into letterpress this week - I made these simple notecards one afternoon whilst Jon was at work. We've sent them to everyone who gave us a wedding present.

We are still without rollers for the Adana, so we're still hand inking the type with our tiny roller - fiddly but it seems to be working alright for small things! We are busy with another fun letterpress project this week, but its a surprise for someone so we can't reveal any details yet...

We have been working on lots of our ideas for new prints since we got back from Sussex. Above is a pile of my favourite sketchbooks in the sunshine. I love beautiful sketchbooks and I can never resist a new purchase...

However, some of them are too lovely to despoil with my scrawl so only two of the ones in the photo above have ever been used. I've joined a new group on Flickr, 365 Sketch, which is encouraging me to sketch a little every day, but I haven't plucked up the courage to upload any of my efforts... yet!

Spoonergregory make it official!

We tied the knot in style on Saturday 19th January! We then spent a very happy week in an early 18th century hunting lodge in Sussex. The lodge is known as Fox Hall, and is owned by the Landmark Trust (a UK based charity that rescue historic buildings and convert them into wonderful holiday homes).


The plain red brick facade hides an opulent interior -


Needless to say our trip has provided us with lots of inspiration and lots of sketches and ideas to work up into designs for prints.

All is quiet on the printmaking front at the moment, we managed to finish all our ongoing projects before the wedding. We're both looking forward to getting all the tools, inks and other paraphenalia out again at the weekend and getting started on some more engravings and woodcuts.


Today is a lovely sunny day, so I've managed to take some sunny photos of the 'Pegs' notecards - available now in our Etsy shop!


Our living room is full of the heavenly scent of these hyacinths - I'm planning on doing a little watercolour sketch of them this afternoon with a view to perhaps turning it into a wood cut.

Bookplates and other things

Happy New Year to all our readers!

Engraving the bookplate, originally uploaded by spoonergregory.

Before Christmas we were busy working on a commission for a bookplate, and here it is in various stages of completion! The image on the bookplate is a fairly typical Norfolk landscape with a round towered church, based on All Saints in Keswick.

The bookplate was engraved on a 4x3 inch maple block. The photograph above shows the block under the magnifier during work on the landscape, and the one below shows the completed landscape.


The completed block -


Jon found it quite difficult to engrave super sharp lettering on maple, but the end result still looked lovely and crisp once printed. Here are some of the printed bookplates drying on our bed...


I also managed to finally finish my print of three brightly coloured pegs by adding a simple silver hinge. I'm really pleased with how the pegs have turned out - I liked them so much that I made some notecards too! Hopefully it will inspire to do some spring cleaning...

'Pegs' is available now in our Etsy shop.


At the moment we are busy with another bookplate commission, which will be finished and printed by tomorrow night.

All our other printmaking adventures are on hold for a couple of weeks - we are getting married on Saturday and then are away on a surprise honeymoon! We did manage to get to grips with the Adana whilst printing our wedding invitations (photographs to come), so at last all our type is sorted neatly into trays. Hooray!

Engravings on the Adana

Last week the Adana came in for some heavy use as we printed a run of 50 bookplates on it. These were a commission for a Christmas gift (hence the photo doesn't give too much away!) It took a fair bit of trial and error (as usual) to get the right consistency of ink, but though it was a fiddle to get the roller to it once the chase was set in the press, it was much quicker than burnishing by hand. Having the press in the upstairs boxroom makes for cramped working conditions, but the toilet does sterling work as an inking table (as long as the lid's down).

We also got round to printing the St Winifred's engraving at long last! You can see it on our Flickr page.

And last of all, we got our Christmas tree up! All seven feet of it! You can watch us in action below!

Pegs, pegs and more pegs

The first stage in my new reduction wood cut of three brightly coloured pegs.

I've printed all the peg shapes in orange, pink and blue - now I just need to add the metal hinge with the new silver printing ink. I made some notecards with the same peg block, and the silver ink works really well on them.

Sadly there's no sunshine in Norwich today, and it's too dark to take a proper photograph - I'll add some more when the prints themselves are finished and it's a sunny day!

This evening we are printing a commissioned bookplate on the Adana - Jon is sitting on the floor packing the chase with bits of wood as I type.

I'd better go and lend him a hand....

Stuff we like to print with #4

The fourth part in our erratic series of favourites. Today, some lovely end-grain wood blocks.

We have lots of blocks waiting to be engraved, in all shapes and sizes. Below is a random assortment of tiny blocks, never measuring more than 2 x 3 inches.


We also like to engrave on Resingrave, a synthetic material designed to imitate boxwood. I love the pristine white top layer before a block is engraved - always completely smooth and cool to the touch.


Next, a maple block. This one measures 3 x 5 inches, and is made up of several smaller blocks joined together.


Below is one of our precious boxwood blocks, from Chris Daunt, one of the last suppliers of handmade wood engraving blocks in the UK. If you ever hold a boxwood block in your hands then you'll know why it is such a highly prized wood. Boxwood feels completely different from any other wood, and the blocks are utterly beautiful in their own right, without any additions from us!


Below is a close-up of the grain of the same boxwood block.

One day we might just be able to bring ourselves to scratch its surface...

Cutting

This weekend we have both been doing lots of cutting!

We both find cutting to be quite therapeutic, especially with a glass (or two) of sherry and a favourite CD in the background. After a couple of weeks of day-job related upheaval we both needed to sit down quietly and do some cutting!

I have been working on a new wood block of a wooden peg which is now ready to print. I used one of my new tools, which was very pleasing to use and puts my old blunt ones to shame.

Here I am concentrating very hard on not cutting myself -


Jon has been busily engraving for a commission for a surprise present, so instead of a photo of his current block here is a photo of his magnifying glass. Useful for engraving and setting fire to small bits of paper when the sun is in the right place.