Bookmaking and Printmaking

Printmaking stuff:

This summer I took a printmaking class and at the end of the semester we made a book to contain all of our prints. So, I thought I'd take a picture of each print phase and share them with you.

This one is a linoleum block print of Tater called "baked potato" which is what we call her which she lays like this and tucks her paws underneath her. It was the first one I did and I'm not really very proud of it because it's messed up in several areas and is pretty clunky.

This is a chine colle aquatint print from a copper plate. It's titled "Susie Homemaker- Blue Chine Colle". This process is both fun and frustrating! You cut out colored paper to fit a certain shape within the plate, ink the plate, and then press it with glue into dampened paper and roll it through the printing press. It's so upsetting when you go through the trouble and then it comes out with the colored paper in the wrong places...but so exciting when you pull the paper off of the plate on the press and it's all in the right place! :)

Chine colle dry point print of Mama and her dog, Bailey when Mama was my age, titled "Mama and Bailey". Dry point is when you scratch into a plexiglass plate and then rub ink into the grooves, clean it off, and roll it through dampened paper in the printing press. This one is a chine colle because the image space is filled with a little bit of a tan tissue paper.

Another chine colle of "Susie Homemaker"

The original "Susie Homemaker" before the plate was etched to create the aquatint. Etching is a process that takes a long time and seems like it's going to be way more trouble than it's worth along the way but once that first print comes off the press, it's clear that it's all worth it. By the way, the process involves bevelling the edges of a copper plate, painting on a oil based ground all over the plate, scratching through where you want lines, then dipping it in an acid bath, neutralizing the acid, cleaning off the ground, and then inking the plate, cleaning it off, dampening paper, then rolling it through the printing press. Very involved process, but with lovely and controllable results.

Bookmaking stuff:

This is the book I made for the prints. This was a fun thing to learn how to do because now I can make sketchbooks, cookbooks, guestbooks....for example:

This is the guestbook I just finished making for Emily Bailey's (soon to be Dalzell) wedding. It's lined with green and the pages have deckled edges and i drew green lines on the pages so that people could sign in an organized fashion. The leaves are 3d and the veins in the leaves I pressed into a groove on the coffee table so that they would pop out. What do you think?