A Stomping Great Stamp

Rubber stamp prints by Dave, Liz and Jacquetta

Rubber stamp prints by Dave, Liz and Jacquetta

Do you remember the first mark That You made? 

Mine was drawing on my bedroom wall when I was five. My mum was very generous and drew a square on the wall and said I could draw on the wall as long as it was inside that square. I was happy as long as I could keep on drawing.

Maybe yours was printing with potatoes. You sliced it in half, carved out a shape with a knife, dipped it in paint and printed it all over sheets of newsprint and maybe tried out a new pattern on the kitchen floor. Maybe you were four. Maybe ten. Maybe twenty. 

When I went to art college I just wanted to draw and paint. I wasn’t interested in printing. My first memory of printing was with potatoes. I was in my early thirties and then I tried printing with rubbers and then lino and then letterpress and woodblock printing and I fell completely in love with whole process of printmaking. 

We’ve all been making marks since the day we were born and if you can’t remember, it’s never too late to plant new memories.

Here are some rubber stamp prints made by Liz, Dave and Jacquetta who came to a recent rubber-stamp workshop at Salt cafe, Bristol. They really enjoyed having the time and space to have a stomping good stamp and no-one was under the age of thirty!

It’s never too late to make your mark  

Dave’s cross and circle stamps

Dave’s cross and circle stamps

Jacquetta’s house and multicolour chevron stamps 

Jacquetta’s house and multicolour chevron stamps 

Liz’s multicolour circle and square stamps

Liz’s multicolour circle and square stamps

PotatoFace.jpg

Potato Face by Mog

Print Your Own Letterpress Cards

Ahrabella Prints wedding cards for Ruth & Pedro 

Ruth & Pedro wedding cards printed by Ahrabella

Ruth & Pedro wedding cards printed by Ahrabella

Using a combination of metal type 

Ahrabella exploring metal type

Ahrabella exploring metal type

Exploring different coloured card stock

Ahrabella printing her cards on the adana 8 x 5 printing press

Ahrabella printing her cards on the adana 8 x 5 printing press

Congratulations

Ruth & Pedro

And thank you Ahrabella for your energy and enthusiasm throughout the whole process. It was a joy to work with you. 

Wedding cards by Ahrabella

Wedding cards by Ahrabella

create your own unique cards

Treat yourself to a creative play day

print on the Adana 8 x 5 printing press

Book Your letterpress workshop

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Trees & Songs in Orange & Gold

It’s been a busy couple of weeks at the studio and I’m excited to announce that a limited edition of 100 EP covers have been printed for Red Deer Sleeping’s EP ‘Autumn’. 

Printing Spiral Song Titles

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Thanks to the lovely Lisa from Lymebay Press for transferring my design for the inner sleeve onto polymer plates. Although I love to work within the limitations of traditional letterpress, there are times when having more more control over the design is preferred. Mixing analogue and digital enabled me to create spiralling song titles for the inner sleeve. It might have been a bit of a challenge typesetting this by hand!  

Inside inner sleeve printed with orange linseed oil based ink

Inside inner sleeve printed with orange linseed oil based ink

Printing British Oak

I scanned and enlarged this botanical illustration of British Oak by W.H Fitch.  The image was transferred to a polymer plate which I then fixed to the chase base enabling me to print the design using the adana 8x 5 printing press.

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100 inner Sleeves Printed

Ouside inner sleeve printed with gold linseed oil based ink

Ouside inner sleeve printed with gold linseed oil based ink

Autumn EP Launch

Red Deer Sleeping’s EP ‘Autumn’ will be released on the 16th November at their EP Launch, El Rincon Spanish Bar, Bristol. Click here for more details. 

Book Tickets for EP Launch