Cookseyville

It's been a busy week! Tuesday night, I finished my Experimenting in Letter Press Printing class at the Irvine Fine Arts Center. I never did get around to printing words on fabric, because we were kept so busy with other projects. There were so many new terms to learn, my head was spinning! But now I know what a quoin is, do you? (It helps to lock the type into the proper position on the printing press.)

We made our own business cards in assorted colors, including cardboard. We also made note cards with our names and a motif on them.

I got a head start on some Christmas cards! The inside message is letter press. The front of the card will be printed with two block prints as shown on the left; one was made from a rubber block and linoleum cutting tools; the other one I made with fun foam, because it was getting frustrating cutting the flowers with my ancient lino cutters.

So this is just a sneak peak.

Finally, everyone in the class made a page for a book that we collaborated on. We each were assigned a word to print, and we added our own background and our own print from a rubber block. Can you guess? Mine is the one with the baby hummingbirds in a nest! I haven't put my pages together yet, because I was busy printing my Christmas cards. I'll show you when it's done.

In the bottom of the photo I showed where I printed the new hummingbird block on Dupioni silk. I'll probably do more of that.

Anyway, the teacher, Madeleine, was really good, very knowledgeable and patient with those of us who were slow to catch on. :-) And the students were really friendly and eager to learn. It was a great experience, and I recommend it.