SOUVENIR Beach House pop up

Souvenir's latest concept pop up shop for Spring is opening tonight! They'll be bringing you a mix of new and vintage treasures, with some exclusive new work from their favourite designers and some new and exciting pieces from their latest group of collaborators. Snap + Tumble starburst cards will be there too for your correspondence and stationery needs!

Project Gallery
1109 Queen St. East
THURS 06:00-11:00pm
FRI 11:00-08:00pm
SAT 11:00-07:00pm
SUN 11:00-05:00pm

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UPPERCASE magazine issue 25

When the open call came from UPPERCASE publication (a beautiful Canadian quarterly print magazine) for printmakers to submit some samples to be included in issue #25, I didn't hesitate to put my name in the hat!

Editor and designer of UPPERCASE, Janine Vangool, always maintains a level of stellar work and an eye for beauty in her magazine. I feel lucky to have gotten in on the list of Profiles in Printmaking and couldn't have been happier printing 50 or so paper bag samples and tucking in a greeting card into each one for subscribers.

Here's a throwback to the last time I contributed to the open call for letterpress artists in issue #8!

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letterpress printing with LEGO

I've always enjoyed seeing kids marvel at the use of a letterpress. Even my little one, at three years of age, is interested in how "mommy makes prints". So today I'm happy to be offering, for the first time, a workshop for kids between the ages 8 and 12 that not only introduces them to the basic of printmaking with a press, but with a fun twist! We'll be using the iconic LEGO bricks to create, design and make impressions. Kids will have the opportunity to come up with their own layouts or choose from a few simple ready-made patterns. This is a limited-time workshop offering, so book a spot quickly!

For more information and registration details, please visit the Snap + Tumble website here.

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love her but leave her wild

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 printed with the Line-O-Scribe Morgan press

wood type

12 x 18"

available here

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for big mistakes eraser printing

A few weeks ago I was able to get my hands on one of those crazy big erasers "For Big Mistakes" and got to do some carving! It wasn't exactly type high so I just placed a piece of cardboard that was about 3mm thick and that did the trick. The eraser is just big (and small) enough that it's not daunting to work with and gives you plenty of room to ink something up that feels substantial. If you happen to have a mini Showcard press, I highly recommend using it to print with the eraser. But if you don't, I still recommend giving the carving a go and finding something heavy enough to put on top of it that will transfer an impression onto paper. Good times!

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i wanna do bad things with you art print

 

True Blood is over and I'm a little sad about it. But I think things wrapped up pretty neatly on the series finale. I couldn't help but print this baddie up for the occasion. Now available in the shop!

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love and lightning

Lately, I've been preoccupied with carving stamps out of erasers! These days, it's hard to muster up the energy to use the letterpress after the little one has been put down to sleep. But I've found I'm able to just sit at the dining room table, carve out a little image or two and stamp to my heart's content in a fraction of the time it would to print. The freedom to switch colours at a whim, isn't so bad either! But in the end, I finished the new cards with letterpress printed greetings since I didn't want to completely get away from it :) These will be available at this Sunday's Love & Rummage show at The Workroom. Hope to see you there!

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holiday card printing with yen + danijela

A couple weeks back when I launched the Holiday Card Workshops, I invited these two lovely gals to the opening. Yen and Danijela were such good sports to be printing holiday-themed cards in October! It was a grand time chatting the whole way through and getting to know these ladies a little better outside of the blogosphere. Thanks for joining the workshop ladies! Here's to snail mail and the festive season! 

Have a look at what Yen and Danijela had to say about their time printing at the studio :)

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I found the all-Christmas-music radio station yesterday and it totally made my day. 

Some snapshots above of the lovely Erica printing her holiday cards in the workshop last weekend.

Hot pink and wintergreen are so in this season!

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I was recently introduced to a UK band called  Daughter and have pretty much fallen in love with their cover of Get Lucky by Daft Punk. The songs on their debut album are atmospheric, sad and beautiful. It inspired me to put a brush and watercolour ink to some lovely St. Armand paper and add handset type to it. I love moments like these when I'm moved to create something but not knowing exactly what it is that I want to make. It's times like that when you turn to the tools that you love to use so much for work and commissioned pieces that you often forget that they're also there for play time.

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euro wood type

My good friend, Christopher Rouleau, just came back from a remarkable trip to Paris and among the things he brought back, were a set of vintage type. When he visited me a couple of weeks ago to share stories of his trip, he showed me the letters and I told him that he needed to print those stat! And without hesitation he inked up those beauties right then and there. Out of the four presses that I own, the letters would've only printed well on the Morgan Line-O-Scribe for two reasons: 1). it's the only press big enough and 2). it has an adjustable roller height. Apparently because the letters came from Europe, they weren't exactly type-high. They were in fact considerably higher. I knew the Morgan would come in handy :)

Check out more beautiful photo accounts of Christopher's trip to Paris here!

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numbers book: the numbers!

I've finally added numbers to the numbers board book! Hooray! I can't wait to see this all come together. Next will be the numbers in words. I'm also trying to decided how or if to include colour. So far, I've printed the entire book in black ink. Not very colourful for a kid's/toddler's book, right? Though, something has to be said for the simple black and white contrast. 

We'll see what I end up doing with regards to colour or not!

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little black clouds

I needed some personal stationery to write a couple of thank-you's, so I quickly printed these flat cards. You'd think that black clouds would be ominous, but not so here. Fluffy, cute and small - perfectly suited to happy little notes.

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numbers book progress

Slowly making some progress with the numbers coaster book. For those of you who don't know what this is, it's a project I started last year! It's a small board book I intend to give to Marcus when it's completed. It goes through numbers 1-10 and is accompanied by pictures and is all hand-printed with my tabletop press. I'm printing a few extra copies, so it's taking me some time. But the good news is, is that I've finished printing all of the images. Now, it's onto the numbers!

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totem cards

to·tem (noun)

Anything serving as a distinctive, often venerated, emblem or symbol.

 

There is something about this starburst shape that I love and can't seem to stop printing with. I once saw it referred to as a Slocum seal but haven't since found any more information about it. It's become my favorite go to piece when I'm printing on the Showcard press. Maybe it has something to do with how large the block is and how satisfying it is to roll an inked brayer over it. And no matter what colour it lays down, it always looks so, so good. Is it just me or do you also have something similar that you like to see in print? Is there something you have an affinity for and keep printing, drawing or painting?

 

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linoleum block on the lino-o-scribe

Over the last couple of weeks I was able to try out my first linoleum carving with the lino-o-scribe. Before I started I was so afraid that it wasn't going to work for some reason. But I gathered up my materials anyway and hoped for the best. I got some really helpful hints from Kinga, who also owns a Morgan Line-O-Scribe, on which type of linoleum she uses and how to set it up in the bed so that it's about type-high.

My first step was to decide on the size of linoleum I wanted. That was the easy part. Because the press bed is 14x22", I wanted to go as big as I could. The largest block I could find at my local art supplies store was 12x18" which was perfect because I sourced some cardstock at the same size. 

Next was trying to figure out what design I wanted to see printed. But I also had to think about 1.) what I could easily carve out and 2.) something that wouldn't take me too long do. I decided on hand-drawing a series of narrow hexagon shapes with various widths of lines on the inside of each. This was a good first-time design because there was just enough carving that I didn't get tired of doing it and that I got to use a couple of the carving blades. All of the straight lines made the carving go nice and smoothly too! Also, there's a nice balance between the negative and positive space. I wanted to carve as little of the lino off to make the best use of it's size. By keeping the design large, I was also able to see if there were any problematic, low or weak spots with the press and ink rollers.

After finally getting the lino to the height that the ink rollers could make contact with it, I was ready to test the block out. I was happily surprised with the result but as expected, I had some more carving to do at the top and bottom edges of the negative space to have it completely free of an impression.

As you can see in the photos of the prints, there is some variation with the ink coverage. I actually don't mind that. This design would look very different if the colour was completely solid throughout.

All in all, I am very happy with my first experiment with the line-o-scribe and a lino block. The press is in fantastic condition as are the rollers. I see myself doing many more of these lino carvings!

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