Practising and printing

I can barely recall where I was up to with these books; but it has been an interesting process and I have discovered and learned a lot along the way.

I have chosen to print six 'verses' of a poem I have written, onto pages on which I had I printed lino prints based on photographs I had taken of Stone Circles in Scotland.

I had this test page to play with the layout and was happy.  I mentioned the tricks of getting the layout right way back here in June.

Onto the real pages, and I placed a sheet of white paper with the poem printed on it where I thought it might sit.  This was because each page I had printed was different - the height of the print from the bottom of the page; as well as the page sizes themselves.  Why not throw a bunch of complications and calculations into the mix hey?

And then I had a bit of a brain wave - and worked out that if I proofed the verse on goyu paper; it was transparent enough for me to see how the words related to the image, without having much of it masked by the white paper.  Another learning; another win.

So I measured how far the left side was from the edge of the paper and set the press up to locate the print in that location. I did these for each of the five books - measured distance form the bottom; and distance from the edges; moved the chase around in the press to achieve it; marked the press where I needed to line up and then printed.

I have grown fond of this tear in the paper on one of the pages; the grey graphic page.

The pure white page.

 Detail of the tall thin grey stone marks page.

And so by the end of printing, I now have this collection of goyu paper to remind me of proofing with it. It feels like I probably won't forget that trick tho, it worked really well.