Monday, February 27, 2012

Alderson Album.

Rowan Mc Alpine punches 3 holes into each sheet of the album using the sharpest rotary hole punch.

Alderson Album.

Just checking the butterfly nuts (wing nuts) on the plywood cover. Amanda Alderson tried 3 different ways of folding the bookcloth corners on a sample piece of ply then chose the method that gained the highest vote by the Alderson family.

Alderson Album.

Amanda, Rowan show the completed Alderson Album.

Shirley Mullany.

The He Kupenga Hao i te Reo has asked Shirley Mullany to organise the framing of a thought provocing A2 wood block print by Bethani Eustace. (Free lance Graphic Artist) The opportunity was right for Shirley to have a cool poster of 'doors' framed at the same time!

Shirley Mullany.

The 'door' poster is pretty impressive. Shirley holds it up to the camera.

Monica Coe

Monica is our latest WWOOFer. She is an English artist who gained her Fine Art Degree in USA.
The A3 carry boards for the A3 yellowXpress 5000 need coating with varnish to make them waterproof. The set of 40 has just been completed.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Kate Sheppard Movie

The actors for the Kate Sheppard movie conversing (for the 100th time!) in front of the movie set printery and movie set haberdashery in O'connell Street, Central Auckland. I was dressed up as a 1880 printers assistant to be an 'extra' for $60! and behind the Albion table press that I had shifted up to Auckland for the days filming.

Kate Sheppard Movie

Actors waiting for the next call to ride and walk in front of the shop windows as the cameras were rolling. The road, O'connell Street, Auckland Central, was closed off only when shooting was taking place.

Marion


Marion spend 2 days as artist in residence, to learn how to make a book. Briefly Marion, folded her paper with a bamboo folder, made the sewing holes, sewed the 8 sections together around the strings on the stringing frame, glued the endpapers, covered the spine with mull then paper, made the case and finally glued the sections into the case. Her result was spectacular.

Hannah Lock


Hannah was very patient with her sorting of a wide variety of fonts and sizes of lead type. The first step is to isolate the ones from the same family, size, then find the type tray they belong to and return them safely home. Type that appears not to have a home is placed in a couple of trays put aside for 'sorts'. Muddled type like this is called 'pied' type and was often a job for apprentice printers.

Retirement Village


Keith Bird with some of his mates from the Summerset Retirement Village find the woodtype letters to make their name. The men were very interested in a short history of letterpress printing and surprised such an old working collection was still available.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Hannah Lock


The type and stero block is locked into the chase in preparation for printing.
Hannah will have her first try on the Pearl Platen Press (1905)

Hannah Lock


The paper flew through the press as Hannah printed 400 book marks.

Efrain and Ben Santana, WWOOFers.


Allison supervises Efrain trimming the trees hanging over the garage before Efrain and Ben started to paint.

Efrain and Ben Santana, WWOOFers.


The front gate and fence after the painting.

Carrie and Sophia WWOOFers


Carrie and Sophia ham it up while cutting wood for the studio woodpile.

Carrie and Sophia WWOOFers


The white ink is rolled out on the plate in preparation for Sophia to ink up her type.

Carrie and Sophia WWOOFers


Carrie is in the kitchen setting type for a special book for her boyfriend.

Carving tools.


The set of 7 carving tools for woodcut or lino come in a plastic box.
The blades are stainless steel,with wood handle. There are 2 x knife blades, 2 x gouges, 2 x v tools and a chisel. All of these tools are helpful in carving relief.
I import these from Japan.