You're so Vein

A most happy accident / experiment today led to the cover for the calendar. It was also the first day of printing, mostly samples to adjust ink colors and alignments, but it's incredibly exciting to see everything coming together.



Although I intend to have bound calendars on sale at our Etsy shop in two weeks (fingers crossed), I was rushing to get finished photographs taken to submit to Decor8 for Holly's annual calendar roundup.



It was so hard to decide which months to feature (clockwise from top left: august, cover, january, december, october, may), but in the end I'm really pleased with this spread.

Coming soon to an Etsy near you.

Eight down, four to go

Five, if you count the cover, which you should.

Today was July, and this photo doesn't do it justice (stupid fluorescent lights), but imagine red and orange sunshine-y swirls blazing above a turbulent sea. That's what I was imagining, anyhow.



And for September a muted green malachite with hints of blue and orange-brown - autumn tease.



Tomorrow is August so it'll be blistering sunshine all day long in the studio (good thing I did the cold months first).

A Pair of Pretty Printers and their Pretty Printed Pair

I spent the bulk of today in the studio with Angela. Together we editioned a series of holiday cards she designed with very talented illustrator Susy Pilgrim Waters. These cards will be for sale by Angela at our collective holiday Paper & Chocolate open studio in December (stay tuned for details) as well as Angela's other fairs this season.

We printed Susy's bird in the transparent ink first, which looked subtle, shadowy, snowy, delicate. But after printing "Season's Greetings" in red we both thought the contrast was just too much. With a Tim Gunn determination to "make it work," we decided to try overlapping another bird in red which brought it all together perfectly.

Here are the finished cards on lovely, textured, deckled, Fabriano medioevalis paper:



It is incredibly satisfying to fan out a long line of identical finished prints (just one of the many reasons why I so love printing).



What a perfect combination - a red and white card to accompany a gift wrapped with red and white twisted twine (which Angela was so kind to bring me).



What a pretty pair.



And Angela printing. You can see on the feed board that in addition to the Fabriano, we were printing the birds on many piles of miscellaneous papers that she brought or I scrounged from around the shop (the blue Pescia was especially nice).



Though we were both pretty pooped by the end of the day, it was wonderful to spend it printing and talking and collaborating together. So thank you Angela for being such a delightful printing companion and I'll look forward to our future work together!

Wind migration

Blustery cold winds with only the barest hint of the spring to come was the inspiration for the March marble. What came of it far exceeded my hopes with impressions of migrating birds (coming back, that is).

Here are two details from one of my favorites:





Again, loving that macro setting on the new camera. Just loving it.

The Violet

One of my interns is named Emily. She is a printmaker.

Lately, she's taken advantage of working in a letterpress shop to typeset poems which are companions and inspiration for her most recent series of prints. Today she editioned the first set of them, and I think they look fabulous.



See the etchings with and without watercolor detailing.





I love my new camera and it's phenomenal macro setting...

And Emily's gorgeous print.

Add pilgrims and stir

Today in marble-land was all about the May flowers.



Jacob sees green jungle ferns, but I think it looks like fields of purple hyacinths.



I should take a poll when this is all done with and compile what people see in each of the different designs - a sort of marbled Rorschach test.

If you're seeing green monsters, then you should spend less time fantasizing about somehow getting world series tickets...

Defying gravity

I decided on an evergreen and navy blue "feather" pattern for the December page of the calendar. After experimenting with a band application of colors (horizontal stripes), Becca said that it looked like trees, except that it was upside down. I loved the idea so I reversed the pattern, speckled up the sky and feathered away.



The image above is one of my favorites of the day, but the one below is more typical of the forests I made.



Pardon the 180 degree rotation of the photos - the sheets were hanging upside down to drip dry.

Life is but a dream

How to do a four-piece, limited-edition, fine-art, print collaboration in five days or less.

Sketch.



Simplify.



Carve.



Proof.



Carve.



Proof.



Carve.



Proof.



Meanwhile...

Marble.



Marble.



Marble.



Put it all together...

Lock up.



Ink.



First color.



Second color.



Third (and final) color.



Number.



Title & Sign.



Lather, rinse, repeat.



And voila! Five days of intense sketching, carving, marbling, proofing, more carving, more marbling, more proofing, color selecting, and finally editioning a series of boat prints - all carved by Marisa Escolar, and all marbled & printed by me, Shelley Barandes.

While we've done work together before, this was our first collaboration where we really successfully played off of each other, responding to the various elements of the different media that we were working in. It was incredibly gratifying. Having bantered about dropping our other jobs to do full-time fine art collaborations (in a mostly joking sort of way) we are already planning our next (this time cross-continental) project (gritty urban landscapes - woo hah!). It should be interesting to see how working in different locations changes the evolution of design.

Marisa will be selling these limited edition prints both individually and as a collection at Open Studios in SF next weekend, as well as at the CityArt gallery on Valencia in the Mission throughout November, December and January. I, too, will have half of the edition for sale in Boston at our own holiday Open Studio in December.

How do I love thee...

About a month ago a charming woman wrote me with the most charming request. She wanted to commission some personalized stationery for her brother and his soon-to-be wife. In addition, well, here's the request in her own words:

"i would also like to get them smaller cards that can be used as love notes for them to give to each other when the mood strikes- you know, to put above the coffeemaker before one of them goes to work."

Omigoodness! The perfect idea. I could not wait to design these charming notes. In fact, I decided to make them a new product of mini cards! So here they are - coming soon to a craft fair near you:



In fact - come see them in person this Saturday in at ArtsCentral in Central Square, Cambridge.

A Wrinkle in Time

I'm planning my first ever calendar.

It's not a simple thing - there are a plethora of print shops out there and nearly every single one is also planning a calendar. So how can I make my calendar super special?

I am going to make a paper-marbled letterpress calendar.

It's an entirely over-ambitions project, the details of which aren't entirely hashed out yet - but here's a sneak peek at some of the colors and patterns I'm considering for the edition.



I've been in marbling mode working on a collaboration with Marisa, who is visiting this week, so I'm pretty excited about the prospect of doing more! Stay tuned for process shots of our soon-to-be-incredible edition.

Blah-ktoberfest

Well, Oktoberfest was a mixed bag.

After a week of unseasonable but glorious warm, Sunday was typical chilly autumn and drizzly to boot. As Marisa and I struggled to protect the cards from early morning rain, I soon regretted my earlier decision against a tent location in favor of the smaller (and less expensive) table-only spots. We abandoned my typical tiered display in favor of showing all of the cards carefully protected under sheets of plexi-glass (bought spur-of-the-moment at my favorite hardware store across the street). Genius.



Bring on the rain!

Except that by mid-afternoon, not only had the rain cleared, but there was nary a cloud in sight. Sigh. Here's Marisa and Jacob before the clouds parted.



I launched two new products - circus t-shirts and tote bags. We managed to sell only one lonely shirt (even parents of a clown didn't buy one...) which I think had more to do with the booth two down from us, where they had mountains of t-shirts (seriously, at least 5' tall) for $3 each. Etsy, here come the shirts.



Sales weren't too bad, considering most people were just out and about for the spectacle, and we got a lot of interest in future classes (yay!).

My favorite part of the entire day was the mingling of the Honk Festival with Oktoberfest. A parade of New Orleans-style brass bands paraded down Mass Ave and ended amidst all the hubbub of the fair in full swing. The music was incredible and the energy invigorating. After the parade dissipated, bands continued to play on the corner across from the booth. Sweet.



Check out the sax player rocking to the beat (and see my favorite hardware store in the background).



Though comments from passers-by who told me they'd seen my cards in stores was encouraging, I'm not sure if I'll do the fair again next year (at least not two booths down from the t-shirt mountains). I am also glad I've only got one more outdoor market (thank goodness with a tent) this season!