View allAll Photos Tagged printing
view light box and full screen
the room at the top of the house which was my office for 10 years has changed recently into a room of my own. I have given away my drawing board and many of my gardening books to a young garden designer friend who is starting out with her own business. Along one wall of my room I have three bookcases pushed together which form a long open shelf along the top - upon which 'stuff' accumulates and is moved about in a happy, not very neat everyday existence. I have decided to photograph the things on the shelf from time to time exactly as they are - with no attempt to make them into a still life. This is a little section of the shelf with printing blocks.
Michael Seidmann gave me the idea of the word serendipity by using serendipitous in a recent comment and Harris Hui has reminded me, by asking me whether I have one, that my 105mm lens is under used. Thanks.
The Ben Day process involved screens with raised dots or patterns that could be painted with ink or other media and then burnished onto prepared areas of an exposed zinc plate before etching, a photographic negative before exposing onto a prepared metal plate, or even onto artwork or ad material before it was photographed for the printing process. A complex and unique process, it appears in use from the late 1800s through the 1980s—maybe beyond in specialized industries or printing plants that didn't update.
On this page, a standard form of the device is shown with details about what tints and patterns are available. It appears to be from
The page shows at the bottom the printed results of applying 40 patterns to photographic negatives before etching and then printing. Compare No. 532 on this page with the identical No. 532 in the next image in this sequence. A 20% tint applied as a layer of pigment to a negative means that 20% of the exposed area is opaqued out, leaving 80% clear. When exposed onto a photosensitized plate, the clear areas harden. During etching, only the unexposed portions wash away. As a result, the relief plate used directly for printing (or through duplication in the stereotype mold/plate method) have 80% of the area covered in tint.
From Graphic Arts Production Yearbook, Volume 6 (1950)
Screen Printing Posters for this years End of the Road Festival.
Charlie Parr End result
All posters will be available at End of the Road Festival on the Jacknife stall and also on the Jacknife website:
Used in today's personal journal entry. dennissylvesterhurd.blogspot.com/2025/09/tubs-and-rings.html
Printed in a dark stained blue on Ivory Somerset paper. The natural woodgrain textures from block's surface pepper atmospheric dashes alongside crisply cut star shapes. (I expect than anyone that appreciates the wabi sabi look of time-faded denim will find much to enjoy in this print. The block's surface is printed very uniformly; the gentle wood striations add an unexpected and very pleasant element to the design, while also very clearly linking the prints to the matrix)
Prints are 18" x 23". Pre-order through just after Thanksgiving & then price will go up to $225.
I did eventually manage to finish the printing frame. It works well, and is a nice addition to my toolset. I think I ought to see about replacing the felt on the hinged back, though, as the original stuff is pretty well shot.
These skeletal Scout Books were created by Matthew Trevaskis of Hola Pistola. The image on the books was created from one of his favorite etchings by his favorite illustrator and artist, José Posada. Living and working in Melbourne, Australia, Trevaskis has plans for more pieces honoring Posada to accompany these Scout Books in his shop soon!
Letterpress coaster series we produced for Anthem! www.anthemww.com Besides turning out beautifully (mainly due to good appropriate design work) the piece is also a good example of using 2-color printing and other letterpress learning.
I finally got the large old two handed Hamilton proofing roller recovered and ready to use. I had it covered with rubber, because composition would never survive the variations of temperature and humidity that I experience in my shop space. The core of the roller is 14 inches and made of wood, which helps with the weight, but I doubt that it would survive another re-coating. The missing handles were replaced with handles from T. N. Lawrence, and it weighs in at five pounds. The three green rollers are also from Lawrence, and have held up very well considering they are about 15 years old. The poster composing stick hanging on the right was sold by R. Hoe & Company, and is easily 100 years old. The brackets used to hold the rollers are curtain-rod brackets; for the smaller rollers they had to be significantly altered to hang the rollers closer to the backing board. My father always cautioned that I didn't have to re-invent the wheel, but I have discovered in the letterpress field, and especially the hand-press part of it, that re-invention is almost a daily necessity.
East Lansing resident Arie Koelewyn adjusts the spacing between letters after a test run on the printing press on Sept. 29, 2016 in the art studio at Snyder Hall.
This is a long exposure shot of the Heidelberg "Printing Horse". Worlds biggest Horse Sculpture. 40 feet high, 90 tons. Shot with Nikon D3100, 50mm, 20sec, ISO 100,
coming soon in very limited edition to tugboatprintshop.com; sign up for T.B.P.S. newsletter for 1st release details tomorrow 🎶
The printing frame was left with the sensitized salted paper in contact with the calotype negaive for a few hours on my terrace. Little did I know, that while I was in the basement darkroom it started to rain. Though the frame was not totally unprotected the wind direction made some rain come on the frame and inside it. The thin calotype paper got wet and being pressed wrinkles appeared immediately as the swelling paper was also restricted and got wet in the upper half mostly. The contact with salted paper released the chemistry which got into the calotype negative causing yellowing. I conducted a rescue operation and think I saved it by minimising the damage.
The rescue operation:
1. put in a water bath immediately for about 30 min in subdued light.
This, to make the paper relax fully all over and release the water soluble discoloration which comes from contact with other materials, including the wooden frame
2. refix for 2 min in fresh hypo. In case the calotype negative sucked in chemistry from the saltprint paper it could have become light sensitive. Refixing may also help remove some of the yellow/brown discoloration
3. wash for 2 hrs. This was done to make sure all hypo is removed and if any other watersoluble substances were in the paper.
Canosn Marker layout is a strong paper and survives all this remarkably well, if this was Hahnehühlle paper I would have more trouble with distortions and possibly tears
4. air drying hanged up and weighted to stretch the calotype lightly when drying.
5. pressing in hard press put between two pieces of clean archival (unbuffered) pieces of mat board. My newly acqured press has proved incredibly useful.
The rsult is a flat calotype with light yellow staing seen in low density areas of the tree and the top of the building. Just printed from the rescued calotype and see no serious failure. I have a feeling that if this was a glass plate negative I would not be able to save it.
Cheers and skål for paper negatives!
3D printing done in collaboration with David Baird (Baird Studio). They are 3"x3" Design by David Baird
I needed a small press for a special operation, and an arbor press seemed like overkill for what I needed. I drew up these mating tools and uploaded STEP files to ShapeWays.com... designed to fit in a watch-case press. The parts, 3D printed in steel, arrived in a couple of weeks. I had left pretty tight clearances in the area where the tools guide themselves together for alignment, so I had to do a little hand filing in that area to make them fit - maybe ten minutes there. The two tools cost about $150 each, so it's not super cheap - but getting something like this machined would be more expensive and slower. The blue press itself is maybe $20 at Harbor Freight.
The Dual Colour #3DBenchy 3D-printed on a BCN 3D printer at CreativeTools.se.
Download the dual-colour STL files at 3DBenchy.com/download