Skylab Letterpress Internship: Week 8, Final Week

Day 25
I cut down paper for a job, packaged a finished job for shipping, and finished the edges of my cards. During lunch, I asked Bob if he had any professional development advice, specific and/or general. He suggested taking as many random classes as possible, especially business and computer (also, more Illustrator). We also discussed the many interests that I have for potential career paths, he advises me to narrow everything down but being sure to include my main interests: art, outdoors, and hands-on. He even suggested interior design, as it would be a new challenge every day, I could use art and design skills, and it is hands on. Basically from his commercial background, he was considering the many ways that I could successfully make a living in the art world. I so appreciate his words, I really need to create a balance between the commercial and fine art worlds, I feel that I will find what I am looking for there. 

Day 26
In the morning I made three photo polymer plates and boxed up my completed business cards. After lunch we had a field trip over to the Kansas City Center for the Inc and Paper Arts, a "community studio." We had a grand tour of the Hobbs Building's basement by Calvert Guthrie. There are so many different presses and TONS of type. Kansas City is fortunate to have such a place for anyone to be a member and share the love of printmaking.

Here are links to both the website and the facebook page for the KC Center for the Inc and Paper Arts https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kansas-City-Center-for-the-Ink-Paper-Arts/61767615395
http://www.inkknifestudio.org/

Above is a print that Calvert let me take home, it's from a block from the 40's with incredibly intricate line work.

Day 27
My final day started by getting a press prepped to do the blind color on a set of wedding invitations and mixing two inks. I set the second press up with one of the colors and prepped it with a run of Skylab promo cards. The ink ended up having too purple of a hue so we cleaned the press up and made a new color. Once that was completed, I ran that portion of the cards through. After cleaning up, it was time to leave. I packed up all of my creations from the summer and said goodbye! (I will be making a visit next week, so it made the goodbye easier)

Boy, it has been quite a summer at Skylab Letterpress. All credit to Bob Atkins, he taught me SO much. I have a huge respect for such a historical art form, and definitely have found a love for it. Big thank you to Bob for being an honest and enthusiastic teacher, businessman, printmaker, and friend.

Skylab Letterpress Internship: Week 7

Day 21
I started by changing the water in the plate processor and made three plates. Afterwords, I printed three older blocks of women on the Vandercook press then cleaned the bed of the press of the lead and furniture. Before lunch I prepped one of the presses and after lunch I prepped the second press to print the information on my business cards. This proved to be a hard job to set up and did not end up getting the cards printed.

Day 22
I got everything dialed in on the press and finished printing my business cards. After I cleaned up the press and ate lunch, we went on a "field trip" to a company that makes dies for cutting. We had them make a prototype of a box for one of our customers and then got a tour of the facility. There were so many CNC routers and stacks of wood. They even did a sample cut with the laser cutter for us, it sounded like noises you would hear on Star Wars. They also had the biggest paper cutter I have ever seen! They explained how the job was done before most of the computer run machines were brought in, sounded like SO much work. When we returned to the shop, I prepped a press to print out my greeting cards. It took a bit to get the feeding and ink consistency dialed into where they should be. Again, Bob reminded me that these are the daily adjustments with letterpress printing as I was getting a little frustrated while I was trying to get the press to work properly. Again, it is challenging but rewarding once you get it figured out! I printed about half of the pages in black to finish up the day. 

 

Day 23
I put dark blue ink onto the press and printed the greeting card design on a portion of the remaining paper. I cleaned up the ink rollers and added a green color and printed another portion of the paper. Next, I moved the plate up and to the left so that I could print the green offset from the blue and black. I ended up wanting a lighter green so I managed to print several cards with the color in-between the darker green and the lighter, a nice array. When I finished up I cleaned up the press. After lunch I set up a press to score the cards in the middle for folding.Once I got the pressure right and everything thing lined up, I scored all of the cards.

Day 24
In the morning, I prepped a press to print a clients job. I got everything lined up, ink and paper on, and printed all before lunch. It was a breeze after my projects provided many little issues. After lunch I got my greeting cards cut and then when I was cutting a test sheet of my business cards, I noticed that the cards were not centered on one side. As there are SO many things to take into consideration and remember throughout the duration of a job, it is easy to forget or simply not notice a step that needs to be completed. Regardless of how perfect my crop marks were in relation to each other and the page, the paper was not cut to the perfect size that would allow printing on the back to be perfectly aligned when I flipped the pages over to print. After panicking and thinking I would have to start over, Bob saved the day and we got everything lined up and consistent with what we had. They ended up looking great! My hat is off to Bob with how he handles complications, I know he says that he still makes big mistakes and it stinks but in the end, it is only paper.