I’m making very good progress with the Letterpress part of the Book of the Erinyes at the moment — I’m managing to fit in 2 sessions of work at Brighton Independent Printmaking each week, and I’m really on a roll.
Proof prints for chapters 6 and 7 below (click through to see larger versions & leave comments):
I’ve been putting some hours into the Letterpress side of the Book of the Erinyes recently, and have made a fair bit of progress.
Yesterday evening I managed to print out the text for the first section (there’s only one page of text per section).
I’d spent an evening the previous week meticulously setting most of the type (shown inked up and sitting on the press, below), which just left me to finish it off this week and start printing.
After a handful of adjustments for typos or overly-worn letters I was lucky enough to get a decent print on the first real attempt.
In some ways it’s strange — I could type and print the text for this page on my computer in less than five minutes, so why spend six hours slowly picking each individual letter, arrangingthem, inking it up, running test prints…?
The answer is in the finished result. If you’ve ever seen a piece of letterpress-printed type you’ll have noticed the way the metal letters slightly indent the paper and the shine of the oil-based ink (it sparkles just a bit when it catches the light).
The Book of the Erinyes is being printed on a heavy (220gm) cartridge paper, which is probably the thickest paper I can get away with putting through the press. The body text is 12pt Goudy Old Style, with larger sizes of the same font being used for headings.
The combination of letterpress printed type and a good quality paper makes the finished page really enjoyable to handle and hold. I was thinking of scanning a copy, but a scan just can’t catch the tactile qualities of the paper or the look of oil-based ink sitting on the surface of it.
I’m happy to say that I’ve printed out the title and half-title pages.
On Wednesday at the Letterpress workshop I monopolised the press to run off 30 copies of each (I’ve finalised the limited edition to 30 copies).
Due to the nature of Letterpress there are slight variations between each one — differing amounts and distributions of ink because of how I inked the text on each pass. This is one of the things I really like about Letterpress.
Next up will be the Contents page (which I’ve already set, and is waiting in a galley) and the first actual page of the book.
I’ve just got back from this week’s letterpress workshop where I managed to print some proofs (photo below) of the title and half-title pages of the Book of the Erinyes.
These two pages will make up the first signature of the book. The signatures only consist of 2 sheets (8 pages in total, Crown Quarto size — 7½″ x 10″) because of the thickness of the 220gm cartridge paper I’m printing on.
The half-title page is set in 48pt Goudy, and the title page is in various smaller Goudy & Goudy Italic type with a decorative block.
Last year I did an evening course in Letterpress Printing at the Brighton Independent Printmaking centre. Last week Les Ellis, the course tutor, invited me back for a 4-evening follow-on course where I could work on my own project, but with Les Ellis and colleague John Packer on hand to refresh my memory and provide expert advice.
I’ve just got back from the first of these four 3-hour Letterpress Printing workshops, and I’m happy to say that I managed to remember most of what I was taught on last year’s course.
This evening I manage to get the half-title and title pages hand-composited and locked into chases, ready for proofing and printing next week.
The half-title page is set in 48pt Goudy, while the title page is a mixture of 30pt Goudy (for the title), 24pt Goudy Italic (for the subtitle), and some 12pt Goudy for the small print. It also includes a very nice decorative block. I hope to be able to show you the results next week.
I’m really pleased with the progress today — I managed to get more done in one session than I’d hoped. Next week’s session can’t come soon enough.
