What's black and white and red all over?

Today I had another wonderful opportunity to infect four new students with the letterpress bug. Carol, Jesse, David and Jennifer spent the day learning the trickeries of hand-setting type and finessing both the Vandercook and one of the Kelseys in printing their work.

David began the day with show and tell, whipping out (or rather, very gently setting down) a gorgeously framed page printed on an original Gutenberg press (circa 1460). See the next post for details. If nothing else, the red and black color palate of the day's printing was inspired by the work.





No day would be complete without another example from the "Learning How to Read Backwards" lesson book:



My favorite design of the day was an absolutely lovely bookplate by Carol - what a great use of ornaments! She was ever-so-patient, despite registration frustrations, and I hope she's as delighted as I am with the result (perfect timing as well, given the bookplate workshop we'll be having at the end of the month).



Jennifer is the new proud owner of a C+P pilot (lucky girl!), looking to pick up a few pointers before diving into printing on her own. The pressmark on her card was not printed crookedly, or in a swayed way - I just couldn't take a straight picture.



Jesse made the most beautiful pyramid lockup I've ever seen, though of course, I neglected to get a picture. Bravo anyway, Jesse!

Thank you to all four, for a stupendous day of letterpress!