'Diving for Scallops'
21 young artists from Barry Williams class at Huntley School, Marton, spend the day working at Homeprint producing 2 colour prints from MDF carvings and print the names of their stories with 100 year old wood type.
Allison admires the special Thanksgiving food prepared by Steve and Kelly on Thanksgiving Day.
Bianca, our latest WWOOFer from Germany, inks up her MDF carving of a gecko. I encourage my students to print many copies of their first carving (try sets of 4 lighter colours first).
The type (Latin Bold 24 point) has been locked into the pallet chase.
The pallet is about to be keyed into the platen of the McKay (circa 1890) goldblocking press.
Sample prints testing the pressure and the heat needed for the gold foil to melt onto the leather.
Nicola made a great job of making a card template then cutting out the leather to fit the journal.
Margaret is in the old safe with the new xmas card collection, standing in front of a handprinted poem that she handset at Homeprint.
Ricarda's sketches and carvings are at the proof stage, ready to be inked up and printed. We realised the lovely little image of the outline of New Zealand was carved as you would see it in a map, BUT, it needs to be in reverse for the relief print to have the correct orientation.
Ricarda and Merla with the 'Bee Sting Cake', just out of the oven.
Allison, Merla,and Ricarda enjoy the 'Bee Sting Cake'. Of course I enjoyed it too!
'A fisherman'
The gallies hold the type as a flat surface, the furniture and small magnets hold the type in lines for clear printing.
Merla pulls on the power lever to lower the platen onto the galley with the inked up type. This operation is very simple and requires very little energy in the printing action, much more energy is required to move the bed in and out under the platen.
Merla holds up her latest print ready to hang it on the line to dry.
The inking up of printers type set in a galley is done, inking up on the diagonal, both ways. In this learners studio I use waterbased ink. Ricara is being very careful!
Ricarda shows the print she has just peeled off the Imperial Press (1828).
Allison walks down to the ducklings and mother duck in the park beside Te Papa.
Piikea Clark buys a beautiful book on printmaking and a history of music recording in New Zealand from Tania. Poppies Bookshop has just won the 'North Island Bookseller of the year' prize through the efforts of Tania Gunn and mastermind Margaret Kouvelis.
Merla has sketched ideas on paper, drawn onto MDF, then carved with the Japanese carving tools using a bench hook for safety.
