Skylab Letterpress Internship: Week 6

Day 17
First thing I loaded ink into a press, packaged up a run of business cards for shipment, and reprinted a sign that I made for a reminder when making plates. I got a plate put on the press to be printed with chipboard, and adjusted the pressure and impression. We had a bride come in to okay the progress on her wedding invitations. After lunch I worked on my project designs on illustrator which included cleaning up my hand drawn and scanned art and designed the logo of one of the business cards.

The labels I made taped onto the tins.

 

My reminder when making plates...

Illustrator in action.

 

 The wedding invites.

Day 18
I made a plate for Bob then spent the rest of the day on the computer finishing the designs for my two business cards and greeting card. I also got the formatting and fonts figured out.

 

Day 19
I made the three plates for my projects as Bob was able to print out the film the night before. I selected the stock and got it all cut down to the appropriate size. I called a client in regards to her job and clamped a different run of business cards that would get edge painting.

Day 20
I started with getting the press prepped for the first color on my business cards. This included making sure the guides were straight, loading in, inking the rollers, loading the paper, getting the plate onto the chase, and making adjustments so that the plate would print on the paper straight. Bob was in the office working while I was running extra paper (a.k.a. 'make ready') through the press as I adjusted the ink to get it consistent as well as get the paper to feed without it feeding wrong and stopping the press. Two hours of tweaking and being slightly stressed, I finally figured out how to make the minute tweaks that Bob has down. After lunch, I got both sides of the cards printed. Afterwords, I cleaned up both presses for the next jobs, then worked on packaging up the recently edged cards. The last 30 minutes were spent blocking out parts of film the make a plate.Bob said it sounded like I was having issues in the shop in the morning and asked if I learned anything from being alone with the press. I said that it was indeed frustrating trying to figure it out; however, I learned valuable lessons that probably wouldn't have been learned any other way. It was hard! He said it's a learning moment for him as well as he now knows how valuable it is to let the intern have some time to be frustrated and figure it out.

Here are the designs for the business cards!

 I also printed the designs on chipboard which turned out nicely!

Packaging up the edged business cards.

Skylab Letterpress Internship: Week 5

Day 14
Today was the new intern Laura's second day at Skylab. She shadowed me a lot of the day and I explained what I was doing as well as had her step in occasionally to try out the task. The first task was prepping one of the presses with ink and a plate and making adjustments so that the crop marks on the paper and on the plate match. It was a tricky one, especially as the plate is an older metal one rather than polymer. It was also a little tricky since I am not used to explaining what I am doing to someone else, but it made for great experience as well as instill the information that Bob has taught me. After lunch, we packaged up a business card job and then finished tweaking the press for the reprint. Once all was straightened out and the crop marks matched, I ran the job while Bob spoke with a client that came in. After the cards were finished printing, I set up the second press with the die to cut the edges of the cards I just printed.

Day 15
I started the day with changing out the water of the photo polymer plate processor. Then got the paper loaded onto the press with the die and tested it to make sure all was lined up still. After a few adjustments, I ran the job through. As this was a reprint of the original job we did a few weeks prior due to the ink being flip-flopped, I unpacked the original set and packed up the new-correct run. After lunch I showed Laura how to block in type and let her lose while I cleaned up one of the presses and prepped it for another run. Once she had all of the type, furniture, lead, and quoins locked into place, I showed her how to ink it up, and dial in the pressure. Once it was dialed in, we printed several sheet.

Day 16
I made three rather large plates and showed Laura through the process of processing them. Once they were all complete, Bob and I realized that I had developed all three with the film facing the wrong direction (the plates would have printed everything backwards). A simple mistake ruined a lot of polymer plates; so I did them all over, correctly. After that, I set up more type with Laura and printed them.

The film of two of the plates

 My poor plates that I messed up.

Skylab Letterpress Internship: Week 4

Day 10
I made a few photo polymer plates in the morning and managed to spray myself down the front with a hose :) In the afternoon I printed out the "get well" cards for my mom. I found the best way to ink this up was to roll the yellow on the daisy with a brayer first and then dab the blue onto the words with my finger. They turned out nicely. Bob shared another book with me which is a compilation of small drawing tutorials from various Hallmark artists.

Day 11
I knocked out a bunch of my own printing on day 11. I used several colors to print up the sheets with "enjoy" and "cheers" which turned out to be pretty fun. Again, I used my finger as well as a brayer to ink up the type. Last week, Bob had me separate a big tub of yellow ink into four smaller containers and he wanted me to print up a few labels for the smaller ones. I quickly threw the type together and got the labels printed in no time. Very little tweaking was involved, they printed great! I then cleaned up the press as it would be used for a job the next day. 

Day 12
First thing I changed the water in the photo polymer processor (without drenching my front with the hose) and mixed up two different ink colors. I got the "get well" cards cut to size by using a guide that I made to ensure the image was oriented correctly. Then scored and folded them and picked out matching envelopes. The final hour was spent getting the holes popped out of a job that was die-cut and packing it up for delivery.

Day 13
I cleaned up the Vandercook press that I have been using to print on this week as it was used the night before by Bob and a former employee to finish up a clients job. I mixed up several inks and set up the two Heidelberg presses with ink and paper. I then got the plate and paper oriented and ready for printing on one of them. Bob had a student come in for a quick tour as she will be another intern for the remainder of the summer. It looks as though she will come with a different skill-set and interests than what I have, it will be a great learning opportunity for the both of us! I look forward to it.

My internship will be continued after a short hiatus...