A little bit of this and that

As we tested this and that and had a few goes at things with different papers and the like at the letterpress workshop on the weekend, one of the things we trialled was the use of the metal type with a tabletop press, but with no ink.

Always a fan of white on white, I knew embossed lettering looked gorgeous and so we had a quick play with some Arches Velin and with some beermat bored.

Delicious - and now Barry and I each have a coaster by our computer with Kindness on it - a lovely daily reminder.

The beermat board really does love the pressure...

And the Arches came up softly and gently.

As we pottered along we came across moments of broken type. Even tho lead type seems indestructible; it is fact quite fragile and relatively easily damaged. As evidenced here...

This beautiful 'h' just wasn't picking up the ink like other letters, so we had a good look at it and discovered that the surface was really pitted. Not sure why, but there you go. So we changed it over.

There was a nibble out of this 't' as well

And one of the leading edges of this 'v' had also been munched.

I have now set aside a special place for broken type - and will continue to use it to demonstrate the fragility of type in future workshops.

And to finish the day we watched a massive storm below us in the valley. We dashed back from the studio anticipating that we were about to get drenched and then the sun burst through and we were offered these rainbows for reward at the end of a big couple of days!

I really do love a rainbow...