bookhou at home

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend - on saturday john and I did the silkscreen and letterpress workshop in conjunction with the paper place. it was a lot of fun - I think it's a wonderful way to try two printing techniques at the same time. students brought their own images for the silkscreen component and used our images and movable type for the letterpress printing. I am hoping in the near future I can do more of these. here are some highlights.

*I wanted to post a few helpful links - I get a lot of emails regarding helpful information regarding letterpress printing tips and techniques. some helpful info for printing would be from briar press (good for looking for a press or for classes in your area or questions regarding your press in general) - although I don't whole heartedly agree with some of the people commenting on this site, they are a bit rude sometimes.

a very helpful blog would be dolce press (I found her tip on using an elastic band instead of your grippers very helpful - a tip I use everyday)-she also goes into how to clean your press and the different types of paper that is good for printing, how to dampen your paper to get an even print, how to add small bits of masking tape as packing to change little areas to make your overall print better and lots more.

another helpful site is boxcar press - one of the tips that I found helpful from boxcar was putting masking tape on the roller guide to move the rollers up so that there is less inking on your plate and avoiding blotchyness. they also have some good tips on designing your file to be made into plates.

hope this info is helpful - happy printing.