Autumnal Dreams and Stories

"No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face."

John Donne

The eightfivepress studio has been quiet over the summer. Alongside printmaking I also make music and have been working on recording songs for a new EP based on classic poems. I’m hoping to release it over the Autumn and I’ll be printing the EP covers on my adana press. I’ll keep you posted!

Letterpress Workshop

Printing dreams and stories at El Rincon Spanish Tapas Bar

El Rincon is a cosy Spanish Tapas bar and vibrant music venue tucked at the bottom of North Street, alongside South Bristol’s buzzing community of local shops and cafes and restaurants.   

I set up my adana press and boxes of type for a letterpress workshop with David and Jodie. 

David and Jodie bring their ideas in a journal filled with magical quotes from their 3 year old daughter. They each pick a quote to make a print and begin typesetting with a combination of metal and resin type. 

Quote for Jodie’s Print

"I want to rule the World. It’s one of my dreams” 

Quote for David’s Print

“Tell me a story from your mind.” 

Printing the whole quote in the chase is asking alot from the adana so after setting the type we remove some of the lines of type and replace them with furniture / spacing. This way David and Jodie can print the quote in stages and get a much clearer print. 

Here are the results of their hard work.

As David and Jodie finish off their last few prints, the El Rincon Tortilla Championships are about to begin...

Thanks David and Jodie for your exuberance! It was great to print with you. 

Letterpress Cards for El Rincón The Spanish Bar

The Process

David from El Rincón asked me to design and print cards for his Spanish Bar. He really liked the Berthold Futura typeface which I used for the letterpress workshops poster. Obviously the type is too big for business card size so I hunted out some of my old cards printed with this typeface, cut out the words with the characters I needed, scanned and re-arranged them in Photoshop. 

Digital to Analogue

I worked up the design in Photoshop and sent off the file to be made into a polymer plate. 100 cards were to be printed on both sides in black and red so each side would need be printed twice. That's 400 prints for 100 cards. Oh for the love of letterpress!

Next Up:

1. Cut the polymer plate into 4 smaller plates.
2. Line up plates individually for each print run.
3. Print El Rincon in black letterpress ink.
4. Clean up the rollers and ink disk.
5. Apply red ink for the second batch of printing.
6. Replace the ‘El Rincon’ polymer plate with the tiny accent.
7. Line up the accent over the ‘o’ in El Rincón and print the second colour.  
8. Leave for a few days to dry

100 accents printed in red linseed oil based ink on recycled card. 

When the first side is dry apply this process all over again for the second side ‘The Spanish Bar - Bristol.’

If you would like bespoke letterpress cards printed on the Adana 8 x 5 please email mog@eightivepress.co.uk

Gwendraeth Press Book Marks

Fab couple of days printing with wilderness poet, Suzanne Iuppa. Suzanne wanted to print bookmarks in preparation for publishing a book of poems by her friend and poet Laurence James. We each worked out ideas for the bookmarks by cutting up elements of the book cover design (abstracted wave and rope images) and the Gwendraeth Press logo. Suzanne assembled the paper cutouts until she was happy with a design. She then stuck the paper cutouts in place, traced the design and transferred the outline to the lino. 

We carved our lino blocks and printed the first batch in green on the Adana 8 x 5, then blue and finally Laurence’s initials were printed in gold using Univers lowercase type. 

Suzanne Iuppa has published two books. ‘Well Spring’ inspired by healing wells in Wales (Gwendraeth Press) and 'On Track - Poems from Welsh Pilgrimage’ (Alyn Books) inspired from her 200 mile walk following pilgrimage routes from South and West Wales.

Well Spring

“On the morning of March 21, 2014 I started my season-long search for ten Holy and healing wells in Wales, which I continued until the evening of Summer Solstice in June. The places I eventually found have been documented in ancient texts, and by biographers of our Celtic Saints; by book writers and modern day bloggers.  To assist me, I had been given some wonderful insight and information by legend-gatherer, photographer and writer Phil Cope. I had maps. I had boots and waterproofs and a hat and my trusty rucksack and the support of close friends and pen and paper, to write the start of poems which I first had a hint of, somewhere behind my held breath, whilst peering at St Teilo’s Well in Pembrokeshire in 2012, journeying on a long wet pilgrims' walk to St Davids.” Suzanne Iuppa, ‘Well Spring’ - Introduction to the Wells. 

On Track - Poems from Welsh Pilgrimage

"Coming upon these poems is like coming upon the wanderer. Like Suzanne, this pilgrim would commit all he saw - beautiful, wild, Godly - to words passed down in ink. A profound and spiritual evocation of the Welsh and their landscape, captured in this latterday pilgrim-poet’s stanzas." - Clare Dudman, author of A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees

'On Track - Poems from Welsh Pilgrimage' is available to buy from Alyn Books 

Suzanne will be performing her poetry in The Speaking of Nature Tent at MereFest 2017.

Merefest 16th September 2017.

Pressing Matters Magazine Launch

I was thrilled to be involved with Pressing Matters magazine launch last week at The Forge, Bristol. The first issue is now available and packed with informative articles and gorgeous photography dedicated to printmaking. I love reading about other artists so it was lovely to have an insight into other printmaker's approaches to their work. I especially loved the article about Nick Hand (founder of The Letterpress Collective) and Robin Mather’s journey on The Printing Bike. They rode from Bristol to Mainz in Germany to visit the Gutenburg Print Museum. Nick cycled a bike custom built by Robin to carry an adana press on the back and a box at the front for type and paper.

Other great articles in the magazine cover the art of letterpress, linocut, collagraph, etching, screenprint, wood engraving, stencil art and risograph and an interesting reflection by Ben Goodman on the parallels between engraving and human existence.  

In the lead up to the magazine launch I prepared some postcards using an old gramophone plate which I had bought in an antique shop in Bristol. John Coe, founder of Pressing Matters and creative director at coecreative carved his Pressing Matters logo into lino and we set it up on my adana 8 x 5 press for people to print onto the postcards. We put out some card for bookmarks too and the press had its work cut out for the rest of the evening!

Printing the Gramophone

Gramophone, locked in the chase, inked up, put in the press and printed on postcards ready to take to Pressing Matters magazine launch. 

Printing Pressing Matters on the Adana 8 x 5

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Printing Pressing Matters postcards and bookmarks on the adana 8 x 5 printing press and hand carved  rubber-stamp at The Forge, Bristol

Pressing Matters Postcards

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Printing Pressing Matters on postcards with Gramophone and date typeset in Univers 24pt on the adana 8 x 5 printing press. 

Pressing Matters @ The Forge

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People printing Pressing Matters on the Adana 8 x 5 printing press at The Forge Bristol. 

Pressing Matters Bookmarks

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Printing Pressing Matters bookmarks with a hand carved rubberstamp print of the adana 8 x 5 printing press. John Coe’s first issue of Pressing Matters Magazine. 

Rubber Stamps And Rubber Wheels!

Thank you to my lovely friends Katie and Erica (Free Range Legs) who recently lent me their bike trailer. I used it for the first time to carry materials to Salt Cafe for the rubber stamp workshop. Enjoying the view of the docks along the way! 

Rubber Stamp Workshop - Salt Cafe

Lauren, Sophie and Gavin carve out their designs for their rubber stamps. Carving with a scalpel enables more precision. A house, rocket and star will soon be ready to print.

Wiggly House

Lauren creates a two-colour print of a wiggly house.

Stars and Arrows

Gavin prints a star in front of an arrow and using masking technique. 

Rocket to the Moon

Inside the pages of her hand stitched mini journal, Sophie’s rocket takes off from earth and makes it way to the moon.  

Thank you Lauren, Sophie and Gavin for your enthusiasm and adventurous creations! Thank you Al at Salt Cafe for providing delicious cups of tea and cake at while we explored the world of rubber stamping! And thanks to Stephen Fowler for passing on these fab techniques! Stephen recently launched his wonderful informative book on all things rubber stamped!

Rubber Stamping: Get creative with stamps, rollers and other printmaking techniques

Take time out to make stuff!

Come along to Salt Cafe and make your mark by carving and printing your very own rubber stamp! Find out about forthcoming rubber stamp workshops at Salt Cafe by clicking the button below.