Three more fairs, one more weekend

After the four fairs of this past weekend (I'm still recovering) we have three more great events to look forward to in the week to come.

 

Friday evening get your cool on and meet us at the Pink Comma Gallery in Boston's South End for a one-night-only opening and print design extravaganza.

This year’s exhibit is entitled Command-P for the Macintosh keyboard shortcut that allows one to print the digital contents of their screen. Command-P explores the dichotomy between traditional and contemporary printing techniques. Each artist in this exhibit uses digital manipulation and classic printing methods in varying degrees to create their work. Whether manually screen-printed computer illustrations or die-cut letterpress prints, the pieces in this show represent the wide spectrum of work celebrating the art of printed matter.

Friday, December 9 from 6 to 10 pm at 46 Waltham Street, Courtyard 1, Boston.

Saturday you'll find us in the Cathedral High School Gym (also in the South End) for the annual SoWa Holiday Market. This fair is always packed but chock full of great makers - fine art, clothes, stationery, ceramics, jewelry, handbags, and don't forget the Yummy Mummy Brownies!

Saturday, December 10 from 11 am until 7 pm at 74 Union Park Street, Boston. $5 admission (kids are free).

Last, but certainly not least, we'll be back in our hometown Somerville for the Snow Mall at the Armory.

Sunday, December 11 from 12 until 6, 191 Highland Ave, Somerville.

As always, you can find our calendars, coasters, notebooks, and holiday cards on Etsy while they last. If you can't make it to one of the fairs and still want to support local businesses, Magpie in Davis Square, Somerville has a great selection of our holiday goodies in stock. For those a bit further away, stop by Concord Handmade in NH or Craftland in RI for even more local crafty goodness.

Greetings from 2012 - Austin

The last city on our grand calendar tour is Austin. I have never been to Austin, but my husband has a number of cousins there and recently visited. He brought back many postcards, and the cousins were instrumental in finding my inspiration for the Austin sketches.

It was the postcard of the bat bridge that got me. It's proper name is the Congress Avenue Bridge and it is home to the largest urban colony of bats in the world. About 1 million bats live underneath the bridge during the summer months (they migrate to Mexico in the winter) and every dusk they emerge in this cloud to hunt for food, a sight that attracts over 100,000 tourists annually. That's 10 bats for every tourist!

The bats have become such an iconic part of Austin that many businesses have adopted the bat into their logos and below you can see a bat sculpture which sits across the street from the bridge, by artist Dale Whistler.

I've already done a second sketch of the annual kite festival. The Letterpress Library volumes will be available at the end of January. I'm very excited and can't wait to finally visit Austin!

Our 2012 postcard calendar is now for sale in our Etsy shop. There are discounts for multiple purchases. We will also it for sale at all of our holiday markets and events listed in the sidebar.

Greetings from 2012 - Los Angeles

In case you're just tuning in, Greetings from 2012 is a series of posts about the inspiration behind the Albertine Press 2012 calendar, which features a dozen cityscape postcards.

I've been to L.A. only once before, but clearly wasn't paying careful attention. When I went about researching reference images for the skyline sketch, I was pleasantly shocked at the beautiful mountain in the background. Hmmm, maybe L.A. is worth another visit?

Los Angeles, or Miss June (that's when the summer blockbusters come out, right?) is actually an alternate version of one note card design already in our wholesale catalog. I was glad for an opportunity to showcase the variant, which I was particularly attached to.

Our 2012 postcard calendar is now for sale in our Etsy shop. We will also it for sale at all of our holiday markets and events listed in the sidebar.

Greetings from 2012 - New Orleans

New Orleans is one of these magical places I've always wanted to visit - with the French-influenced architecture, phenomenal regional cuisine and of course the ever-present jazz.

The romantic ironwork balconies in the French Quarter called out to be rendered for our next city sketch.

Like taking a step into another century.

Our 2012 postcard calendar is now for sale in our Etsy shop. We will also it for sale at all of our holiday markets listed in the sidebar.

Greetings from 2012 - Chicago

Chicago has an amazing skyline, which I loved designing into a save the date card a few years back.

I knew for the calendar I wanted to do something with skyline in this birthplace of the skyscraper, but the sheer breadth didn't quite work for the vertical calendar format. 

Then I remembered "The Bean." Properly titled The Cloud Gate, this sculpture by Anish Kapoor in Millenium Park has become a landmark and tourist destination for Chicago.

I love that it so neatly captures the downtown skyline in its curved, distorted reflection.

The steel gray ink that I chose for Chicago was the first one I printed, and definitely helped define the palette for the entire calendar: urban, gritty, a little hard. It made it easy to choose our ribbon, though. Lucky for us, Angela at Carta, Inc. just started carrying her 5mm ribbon in iron gray - how perfect!

The 100% cotton ribbon is a must to pair with the textured 100% cotton paper, for the perfect completion to the finished calendars.

I'm still considering options for a second Chicago sketch to complete our Library volume for next year, but the El running between the looming skycrapers might just be it.

Our 2012 postcard calendar is now for sale in our Etsy shop. We will also it for sale at all of our holiday markets listed in the sidebar.

Greetings from 2012: Paris

Designing the Paris page was a task near and dear to my heart - I lived there for nearly two years after college. How can you possibly decide on one thing - there are bridges, landmarks, canals, booksellers, gardens, boulangeries, streetscapes, and so much more to draw upon for inspiration!

I have sketches of the iron lattice work on the Eiffel tower from an attempt years ago to design an Eiffel Tower decorative card. It didn't work. Instead, I turned back to another long-time obsession - rooftops.

The Haussmann unified facades, collections of teeny tiny little chimneys, plant-strewn balconies, mansard roofs with the maids' rooms beneath (nowadays students - who else would voluntarily climb seven flights to get home each day).

I love the result. To me these buildings define Paris in much the same way that stooped brownstones do in Brooklyn, or the narrow tilted canal houses do in Amsterdam.

And now I'm ready to design another! Metro signage?

Our calendars are now available for sale in our Etsy shop.

Greetings from 2012 - San Francisco

I'm so excited to start sharing our 2012 calendar with everyone. Yes, we're running a wee late with it (is it me, or are the calendar round ups getting earlier each year?) and furiously cranking away the last month and cover so we can get to the hole punching and ribbon tying and packaging parts.

Every month in the calendar will feature an original sketch from a different city in the US or around the world. One or two may be familiar from our Letterpress Library collection of note cards, but most are brand new (though stay tuned for new Library volumes next year). When you're done with each month, flip over the page, cut along the dotted line and voila! a ready-to-send postcard. 

I'll be sharing each of the month designs over the coming weeks, along with some of the inspiration I drew from to create each image. 

I love cities and for each illustration tried to find something iconic about each city, not necessarily stereotypical but something recognizable as uniquely *that place*. September's city is San Francisco, where I've visited twice now. The delicate victorian row houses scattered throughout the city were definitely my inspiration.

I decided to showcase the Painted Ladies because they highlight the steep city streets, and the more modern towers of downtown can be seen in the background from the right angle.

I have another SF design to do for the Library volume debut in January and I'm angling for something Chinatown. What's your favorite spot in San Francisco?

Our calendars are now available for sale in our Etsy shop.

2011 letterpress wall calendar

For sale on Etsy, and coming soon to a craft fair near you! They will start shipping after the Thanksgiving holiday. Gobble, gobble, everyone!

All of the inspiration was drawn (literally) from flowers in our neighborhood gardens. I've been meaning to do something with dozens of inspiration images for ages and finally figured out what! Much to the chagrin of my studio staff, as I redesigned the entire calendar only three weeks ago.

A detail of some birches.

When the year is up, cut off the month blocks for some frame-able prints or postcards!

Each calendar is drilled and bound with Angela's gorgeous Italian cotton ribbon, but you can try an alternate display as above. Every ink color was mixed with either silver or gold for a rich, dense coverage and extra shine. But just for that extra oomph, many of them were run through the press twice - over 9,000 cranks of the press all told.

Get yours before they're gone!

A star-shaped 2011

I'm very excited to unveil the first of our 2011 time-trackers - the star accordion desk calendar! Printed in blue/gray on white or green/gray on sage with an argyle pattern, simply spin the calendar to watch the months go by.

The beauty of the construction is that it allows us to print the entire calendar in one sheet, then fold neatly into the star pattern for a fabulous desk accessory.

The calendars are now available for sale in our Etsy store, and at our holiday fairs throughout the season.

2010 - Calendar sneek peek

We're nearly done and will start assembly next week, but here's another peek at our new 100% letterpress calendar for 2010.