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	<title>Ampersand Duck &#187; fine press</title>
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	<link>http://ampersandduck.com/art</link>
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		<title>Type Sampler</title>
		<link>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2012/01/28/type-sampler/</link>
		<comments>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2012/01/28/type-sampler/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:25:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>duckie</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[fine press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[oddments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[letterpress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[woodtype]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ampersandduck.com/art/?p=796</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Inspired by type samplers I&#8217;ve seen over the years, I decided to create one for my collection.</p> <p>Open publication - Free publishing - More fonts</p> <p>If your browser won&#8217;t load the image, click here to be taken to the digital file.</p> <p>The hard copy is 240 x 92mm, printed on two weights of Kraft paper and hand-sewn in a horizontal format. If you would like to purchase a copy, wave your mouse over the top of this page to find the red drop-down Duckshop link. Or contact me directly.</p> <p>For images of the production, have a look at my letterpress flickr set. For the story of its production, click here.</p> ]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Inspired by type samplers I&#8217;ve seen over the years, I decided to create one for my collection.</p>
<p><div><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" style="width:420px;height:80px" id="cb5b786c-c5a8-f945-680a-d205ef735777" ><param name="movie" value="http://static.issuu.com/webembed/viewers/style1/v2/IssuuReader.swf?mode=mini&amp;backgroundColor=%23222222&amp;documentId=120126070334-c4f6af896ca9473e9200bb3a4d8ca545" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"/><param name="menu" value="false"/><param name="wmode" value="transparent"/><embed src="http://static.issuu.com/webembed/viewers/style1/v2/IssuuReader.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" style="width:420px;height:80px" flashvars="mode=mini&amp;backgroundColor=%23222222&amp;documentId=120126070334-c4f6af896ca9473e9200bb3a4d8ca545" allowfullscreen="true" menu="false" wmode="transparent" /></object><div style="width:420px;text-align:left;"><a href="http://issuu.com/ampersandduck/docs/ducktypesampler?mode=window" target="_blank">Open publication</a> - Free <a href="http://issuu.com" target="_blank">publishing</a> - <a href="http://issuu.com/search?q=fonts" target="_blank">More fonts</a></div></div></p>
<p>If your browser won&#8217;t load the image, <a href="http://issuu.com/ampersandduck/docs/ducktypesampler">click here</a> to be taken to the digital file.</p>
<p>The hard copy is 240 x 92mm, printed on two weights of Kraft paper and hand-sewn in a horizontal format. If you would like to purchase a copy, wave your mouse over the top of this page to find the red drop-down Duckshop link. Or <a href="index.php?p=659">contact me </a> directly.</p>
<p>For images of the production, have a look at my <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ampersandduck/sets/72157602094268994/">letterpress flickr set</a>. For the story of its production, click <a href="index.php?p=770">here</a>.</p>
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		<title>Peter McLean &amp; Sky</title>
		<link>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2011/06/28/peter-mclean-sky/</link>
		<comments>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2011/06/28/peter-mclean-sky/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 28 Jun 2011 11:34:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>duckie</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Broadsides]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[EASS Residents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[broadside]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[EASS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[letterpress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[printmaking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[residents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wood engraving]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ampersandduck.com/art/?p=534</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Peter McLean &#038; <i>Sky</i>: 2nd EASS Broadside Resident [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>My second <a href="index.php?p=307">Ampersand Duck EASS Broadside Residency</a> recipient is Peter McLean. He won the residency in December 2009, and for various reasons known to all emerging artists, he&#8217;s only got around to it 18 months later. I don&#8217;t mind, it&#8217;s always worth the wait.</p>
<p>Peter is a graduate of the ANU <a href="http://soa.anu.edu.au/printmedia" target="_blank">Printmedia and Drawing</a> Workshop and his special subject was wood engraving, mixed up with bone prints and stump rubbings. He&#8217;s an outdoorsy sort of dude, likes to pick up odd bits of wood and bits of fungi on his bush meanderings and prints from them. He keeps a blog (called <a href="http://petemclean.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Art Out and About</a>) that can tell you a lot more about his work, and which hopefully will get used a lot while he is overseas doing a residency in California in Aug/Sept/Oct 2011.</p>
<p>When we started talking about his residency, he had no idea about what text to use, and he&#8217;s not much of a poetry reader. I&#8217;d just come back from New Zealand loaded with new poetry books and experiences of meeting poets in the wild. I&#8217;d been introduced to a poet called Brian Turner who wasn&#8217;t part of my posse of <a href="index.php?p=378">Otakou poets</a>, but who had impressed me with his love of the landscape and his intolerance of fools. I was introduced to him before I&#8217;d seen an excellent poem of his in the local paper, and before I&#8217;d bought his latest volume of poems, <em>Just This</em>, so I didn&#8217;t get a chance to admire his work to his face. Soon after I bought his book, it won the NZ Book of the Year poetry section for 2010.</p>
<p>So I threw Brian&#8217;s book and David Campbell&#8217;s <em>Collected</em> (DC was a fine Australian poet who wrote primarily of the local Canberra/Monaro region) at Pete and sent him away. Brian won, and so we had a text, his poem &#8216;Sky&#8217;. It was delight to write to Brian asking him permission to reproduce the poem and to tell him what I thought of him, and even more of a delight that he readily gave us permission.</p>
<p>Time slipped by, but I knew the project was brewing, and Pete and I saw each other regularly at his workplace, <a href="http://www.megalo.org/" target="_blank">Megalo</a>, and at various openings, so there was always a chance to discuss progress. Finally we found a time to work together, mostly impelled by his impending residency deadline.</p>
<p>Pete had the idea of combining a manufactured wood engraving block (made of small blocks of boxwood joined together to make a larger block) with print from a found piece of wood. The poem ponders over what the sky would do if it could observe what we humans get up to down here, and so there are two levels of image: the natural sky and the human-meddled earth.</p>
<p>In Pete&#8217;s composition, the &#8216;sky&#8217; is actually the manufactured block, and the &#8216;ground&#8217; is the natural print. We have used a combination of Baskerville and Imprint Outline for the text, and the paper is Iwaki washi, which is a lovely light and yellowy paper that makes black ink look stunning.</p>
<p>The broadside is now editioned and ready to sell &#8212; it is a limited edition of no more than 50, so if you would like a copy, <a href="index.php?p=23">get in touch</a> quickly, as I think it will sell fast.  The details and price are listed at the foot of this post.</p>
<p>But first, some images:</p>
<p><img src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/Broadsiders/Log.jpg" alt="Log" width="420" /></p>
<p>This is the piece of log that Pete has painstakingly cut &amp; mounted, ready to be hand-printed. It was too big to fit on the press! He worked out a process of folding the foot of the sheets to mask off bits of the log, which we then cut off before printing the rest on the press.</p>
<p><img src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/Broadsiders/Printing Pete.jpg" alt="Printing Pete" width="420" /></p>
<p>Here he is, in Studio Duck, folding a test piece before hand-printing it. You can&#8217;t tell, but it was very cold in the studio that day.</p>
<p><img src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/Broadsiders/offcuts.jpg" alt="offcuts" width="420" /></p>
<p>Here are the offcuts. We are going to take half each, and see what we each come up with.</p>
<p><img src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/Broadsiders/Block.jpg" alt="Block" width="420" /></p>
<p>This is the wood engraving block, exquisitely engraved, but not inked. While I set up the press and type and pulled some proofs, Pete prepared paper and continued hand-printing his log.</p>
<p><img src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/Broadsiders/Chase.jpg" alt="Chase" width="420" /></p>
<p>The text and the block, locked up in a chase on the press, ready to roll (see, I can use a cliche here and it actually MEANS something).</p>
<p><img src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/Broadsiders/toohigh.jpg" alt="too high" width="420" /></p>
<p>Oops! The block was too high here, there are bits showing that are unwelcome. We have packed little slips of paper under parts of the block, but there are obviously too many. It&#8217;s amazing the difference a small piece of bond paper makes.</p>
<p><img src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/Broadsiders/justright.jpg" alt="just right" width="420" /></p>
<p>We adjusted the packing, and the block printed perfectly. We used Neil Wallace Wood Engraving Ink, it&#8217;s lovely and stiff on the press. We had to touch up the type slightly with a hand roller at each pass, but that is so much easier, quicker and more accurate than faffing with the block each time.</p>
<p><img src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/Broadsiders/pinboard.jpg" alt="pinboard" width="420" /></p>
<p>Woo hoo! The print up on the pinboard at <em>bon a tire</em> stage (ready to print). We are jubilant. Pete stayed up late that night finishing the log prints at Megalo.</p>
<p><img src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/Broadsiders/editioning.jpg" alt="editioning" width="420" /></p>
<p>A couple of days later, the log prints are almost dry (such oily ink takes a long time to dry in Winter, so these are touch dry, but if you rub them, they smear) and we can edition what is on the press.</p>
<p><img src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/Broadsiders/Editioning_duckie.jpg" alt="Caren" width="420" /></p>
<p><img src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/Broadsiders/tray.jpg" alt="tray" width="420" /></p>
<p>The more good ones we print, the happier we are.</p>
<p><img src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/Broadsiders/cloudy.jpg" alt="cloudy" width="420" /></p>
<p>Once we&#8217;d printed what we thought was enough (we&#8217;re not sure how many will make it to the final edition, but we managed about 60 all up), Pete pulled an edition of just the cloud, for his exhibition.</p>
<p><img src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/Broadsiders/Sky_final.jpg" alt="proof" width="420" /></p>
<p>So. Here are the broadside details:</p>
<p><strong>Peter McLean, <em>Sky</em>, 2011.<br />
Poetry by Brian Turner, from <em>Just This</em> (NZ: Victoria University Press, 2009)<br />
Wood engraving, letterpress and direct print from found wood on Iwaki washi (paper).<br />
c. 505 x 234mm<br />
Edition of c. 50<br />
$100 each plus postage &amp; handling<br />
</strong></p>
<p>These broadsides will be available at the <a href="http://ampersandduck.bigcartel.com/">Duckshop</a> from late July, but if you would like to pre-order, please email ampersandduck {at} gmail {dot} com.</p>
<p>(There are still copies of Natalie Azzopardi&#8217;s <a href="index.php?p=309">Game Over</a> series available to buy as well!)</p>
<p><img src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/Broadsiders/Text.jpg" alt="Text" width="420" /></p>
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		<title>Limited Edition Cards: 1</title>
		<link>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2011/03/02/limited-edition-cards-1/</link>
		<comments>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2011/03/02/limited-edition-cards-1/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Mar 2011 06:49:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>duckie</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[fine press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[oddments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cards]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[letterpress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[woodtype]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ampersandduck.com/art/?p=507</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ampersand Duck limited edition cards, sold exclusively at the Craft ACT shop. [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>After saying that I would never produce cards or other commercial stationery, I have succumbed to the dark side&#8230; not by money, although that would be awfully useful in these tense and tight commercial times, but by the concept proposed to me.</p>
<p><a title="Craft ACT" href="http://www.craftact.org.au/" target="_blank">Craft ACT</a> approached me, asking for an exclusive line of cards that could, among other things, be used as condolence cards! Apparently they get occasional enquiries after cards that could fit that bill.</p>
<p>Once I got thinking and printing, I was hooked.  So, I present to you my first line of letterpress cards, sold exclusively at the <a title="Craft ACT Shop" href="http://www.craftact.org.au/shop/" target="_blank">Craft ACT shop</a>:</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2011/03/WhiteLightweb.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-508" title="WhiteLightweb" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2011/03/WhiteLightweb-300x300.jpg" alt="White Light card" width="300" height="300" /></a></p>
<p><strong>White Light:</strong> a vintage letterpress cut and 36pt Latin Elongated typeface, printed in pewter ink on Fabriano Tiepolo paper and accompanied by a metallic pewter envelope. 140 x 140mm. Limited edition of 45 prints.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2011/03/BlackLightweb.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-509" title="BlackLightweb" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2011/03/BlackLightweb-300x295.jpg" alt="Black Light card" width="300" height="295" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Black Light:</strong> a vintage letterpress cut and 36pt Latin Elongated  typeface, printed in silver ink on Black cardstock and  accompanied by a Marshmallow white envelope. 140 x 140mm. Limited edition of 50  prints.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2011/03/SorryTreeweb.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-510" title="SorryTreeweb" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2011/03/SorryTreeweb-300x295.jpg" alt="Sorry Tree card" width="300" height="295" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Sorry Tree:</strong> wood type printed in a metallic brown ink onto a hand-rolled sea-green background &#8216;smudge&#8217;, printed on Fabriano Tiepolo paper and  accompanied by a recycled brown envelope. 140 x 140mm. Limited edition of 40  prints.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2011/03/MulberryLoveweb.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-511" title="MulberryLoveweb" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2011/03/MulberryLoveweb-300x294.jpg" alt="Mulberry Love" width="300" height="294" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Mulberry Love :</strong> 2-colour wood type print in orange and mulberry, printed on Fabriano Tiepolo paper and  accompanied  by a metallic moss envelope. 140 x 140mm. Limited edition of 45   prints.</p>
<p>Aren&#8217;t they nice? More soon. Each edition is limited, meaning that if I use that design again, it will be in a completely different colour run. Hopefully they won&#8217;t last long, so don&#8217;t miss out&#8230;</p>
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		<title>Hankie, 2010</title>
		<link>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/11/15/hankie-2010/</link>
		<comments>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/11/15/hankie-2010/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Nov 2010 10:34:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>duckie</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Broadsides]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[exhibitions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Past]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Unique]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Book Art Object]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hand-sewing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[unique]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ampersandduck.com/art/?p=460</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Hankie, 2010, for Julie Barrett's The Hankie Project. [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>No matter what I&#8217;m doing at any time, projects appear that are just too good to resist, and I find myself stepping to one side and participating. One of these was <a href="index.php?page_id=426">Call of the Small</a>, and another is this, Julie Barratt&#8217;s <a href="http://objectsofthedead.blogspot.com/">The Hankie Project</a>.</p>
<p>Julie&#8217;s brief was this: <em>This project was borne out of the recent sudden death of my father, a handkerchief, some emotive words written by a sibling on his death and the traumatic aftermath of a death processed according to particular societal and cultural mores. Interested artists and Individuals are invited to create an artwork on a hankerchief (any hankerchief not necessarily a man&#8217;s) based around death/grief/bereavement and return it to me by end of May, 2010 for inclusion in a collaborative exhibition in June.</em></p>
<p>I&#8217;d just finished a whole <a href="index.php?page_id=467">body of work</a> centred upon a poem by Rosemary Dobson that I&#8217;d accidentally overprinted during the production of her collection, <a href="index.php?page_id=37">Poems to Hold or Let Go</a>. I worked with the pages in various ways: overprinting them, using origami on them to form sculptural elements, and I thought that this would be a chance to finish the process, to draw a veil across this particular train of thought. I see this as a broadside rather than anything book-related.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/hankie.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-461" title="hankie" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/hankie.jpg" alt="whole hankie" width="320" height="240" /></a></p>
<p>I&#8217;ve had an old linen hankie in my &#8216;collection&#8217; box (or one of them, specifically the textiles one) for years &#8212; and isn&#8217;t it great when things finally find a purpose? I can&#8217;t remember if this one has special family significance or if it was given to me by someone&#8230; I wouldn&#8217;t have bought it. It&#8217;s gorgeous, with real handmade lace around the edges.</p>
<p>The text of the poem was transferred from the original letterpress print to the hankie by eucalyptus transfer (which leaves a wonderful lingering scent of eucalyptus, very Australian) and then I used some antique thread to hand-stitch a weeping thread veil over the text. It really is antique &#8212; it comes straight off a Victorian-era factory bobbin and has marvellous slubs and stains through it.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/hankie2.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-462" title="hankie2" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/hankie2.jpg" alt="hankie detail" width="290" height="390" /></a></p>
<p>The Hankie Project link above gives a post to each entry in the exhibition, which looked wonderful. I&#8217;m sure there are plans to travel the works, so it might turn up somewhere near you. If you&#8217;re ever in Alstonville, on the far north coast of NSW (an easy daytrip from Brisbane), visit Julie&#8217;s <a href="http://www.barrattgalleries.com.au/">gallery</a>, which specialises in artists&#8217; books and print works.</p>
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		<title>Miniature broadsides, 2010</title>
		<link>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/11/15/miniature-broadsides-2010/</link>
		<comments>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/11/15/miniature-broadsides-2010/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Nov 2010 08:49:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>duckie</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Broadsides]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[exhibitions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fine press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Past]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[broadside]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[letterpress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[poster]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ampersandduck.com/art/?p=426</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Miniature broadsides, 2010. Teeny little letterpress posters. [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a title="Craft ACT" href="http://www.craftact.org.au/" target="_blank">Craft ACT</a> in Canberra has two galleries and another, smaller space that they call the Crucible Space: essentially just two shelves set into a wall in the foyer outside the gallery. Miniaturist and collector <a href="http://theshoppingsherpa.blogspot.com/">Anna-Maria Sviatko</a>, while doing an internship at Craft ACT, hit upon the notion of turning the two shelves into a two-tiered miniature craft gallery at 1:12 scale. The result was <a title="Call of the Small essay" href="http://www.craftact.org.au/callofthesmall" target="_blank">Call of the Small</a>, an exhibition of (to quote my <a title="&amp;Duck blog" href="http://ampersandduck.blogspot.com/2010/08/small-mentions.html" target="_blank">blog</a>) teeny-tiny craft works, made very seriously by serious craftspeople.</p>
<p>I was one of the Called, and I designed and printed some very little letterpress broadsides. I didn&#8217;t have a lot of time to work on them, as I was preparing to travel to NZ to make some much bigger broadsides. Funnily enough, printing small is just as tricky, maybe even more so, than printing big. So the edition sizes for each poster varies. And there&#8217;s one series of images, and then a few fun ones that just begged to be made.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;d like to see the process of putting the exhibition together, and all the wonderful studio visits made by Anna-Maria to the craftspeople involved, here&#8217;s a <a href="http://theshoppingsherpa.blogspot.com/search?q=call+of+the+small">link to all of her posts on the subject</a>.</p>
<p>THE SERIES</p>
<p>These letters do not spell anything out deliberately; they were chosen to go with the images, which are little metal ornaments that I bought from eBay years ago. Feel free to make them spell things; Anna-Maria made them spell R&amp;D in the show, others may want the word FORD, or maybe your name is DROF. Heh. The letters are 72pt Gill Sans, printed in a bright sexy red. All have little hand-filed deckles at the head and tail, and are numbered and signed.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/D_dragonfly.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-433" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="D_dragonfly" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/D_dragonfly-216x300.jpg" alt="" width="151" height="210" /></a> <a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/O_owl.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-435" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="O_owl" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/O_owl-216x300.jpg" alt="O_owl" width="151" height="210" /> </a><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/R_rat.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-436" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="R_rat" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/R_rat-216x300.jpg" alt="" width="151" height="210" /></a> <a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/ampersand.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-432" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="ampersand" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/ampersand-202x300.jpg" alt="ampersand" width="141" height="210" /></a> <a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/F_frog.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-434" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="F_frog" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/F_frog-216x300.jpg" alt="F_frog" width="151" height="210" /></a></p>
<p>Each of these is 45 x 32 mm in dimension, so you&#8217;re probably looking at them at a larger scale (which won&#8217;t do them any favours).</p>
<p>They&#8217;re not really meant to be lined up together, so I didn&#8217;t put a lot of effort into making the height of AMPERSAND DUCK match up. I designed each one as an individual, taking into account the balance of each image on the &#8216;page&#8217;.</p>
<p>Edition numbers are:</p>
<p>D: Dragonfly &#8212; 20</p>
<p>O: Owl &#8212; 20</p>
<p>R: Rat &#8212; 20</p>
<p>&amp;: Ampersand &#8212; 10</p>
<p>F: Frog: 20</p>
<p>They are all still available.</p>
<p>THE OTHERS</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/lookup.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-439" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="lookup" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/lookup-219x300.jpg" alt="" width="153" height="210" /></a></p>
<p>Speaks for itself.</p>
<p>45 x 32mm, in an edition of 9. Still available.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/hammertime.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-438" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="hammertime" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/hammertime-160x300.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Hammer Time. Hand-coloured.</p>
<p>55 x 32mm. Edition of 6. Still available.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/Almost_ace.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-437" title="Almost_ace" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/11/Almost_ace-213x300.jpg" alt="" width="170" height="240" /></a></p>
<p>Almost Ace. I just love this one. In amongst a box of miscellaneous letterpress stuff was this tiny little logo with the letters ACF, and I&#8217;ve looked at it for years wondering if anything could be done with it or should I just chuck it. One day&#8230; BING! I saw the way forward.</p>
<p>Printed on red Japanese washi, 42 x 30mm. Edition of 11. Still available.</p>
<p>All of these broadsides are Aus$15 each plus p&amp;h.</p>
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		<title>Prime, from Otakou Press</title>
		<link>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/10/19/prime-from-otakou-press/</link>
		<comments>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/10/19/prime-from-otakou-press/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Oct 2010 10:49:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>duckie</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Broadsides]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fine press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Otakou Press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Residencies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[broadside]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hand-press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[letterpress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[poetry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[poster]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[residency]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[woodtype]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Prime, from Otakou Press, 2010: my NZ residency results. [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In August and September 2010, I was <a title="PIR Otago" href="http://www.library.otago.ac.nz/SpecialCollections/printers.html" target="_blank">Printer in Residence</a> at the Otakou Press, which resides at the University of Otago Library in Dunedin, NZ.</p>
<p>My brief was to print a folio of broadsides, or posters, using a poem each from four Australian and three New Zealand poets, in an edition of 100. (The &#8217;4&#8242; was an accident, and the running joke is that it takes four Australian poets to make three NZ poets.) I had the run of the Otakou Press typefaces, including a wonderful collection of wood types, and the choice of their three presses: a Vandercook cylinder proofing press, a small Albion press, and a large Columbian iron press, all of which were only set up for hand printing.</p>
<p>This is the result. The pages are printed on Fabriano Rosapina 220gsm, and the folio cover was designed by myself in collaboration with the University of Otago Bindery, and constructed by the bindery.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Cover.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-379" title="Folio cover" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Cover.jpg" alt="Folio cover" width="480" height="679" /></a></p>
<p><em>The folio cover.</em></p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Page-1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-380" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="Title page" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Page-1.jpg" alt="title" width="420" height="547" /></a></p>
<p><em>The title page</em></p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Page-2.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-381" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="Adamson" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Page-2.jpg" alt="Adamson" width="480" height="345" /></a></p>
<p><em>&#8216;The Sibyl&#8217;s Avenue&#8217;, by Australian poet Robert Adamson</em>.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Page-3.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-382" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="Edgar" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Page-3.jpg" alt="Edgar" width="480" height="679" /></a></p>
<p><em>&#8216;Sight-Reading&#8217;, by Australian poet Stephen Edgar</em>.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Page-4.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-383" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="Harlow" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Page-4.jpg" alt="Harlow" width="461" height="686" /></a></p>
<p><em>&#8216;The Piano&#8217;s Birthday&#8217;, by NZ poet Michael Harlow.</em></p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Page-5.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-384" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="Holland-Batt" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Page-5.jpg" alt="Holland-Batt" width="480" height="332" /></a></p>
<p><em>&#8216;Night Sonnet&#8217;, by Australian poet Sarah Holland-Batt.</em></p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Page-6.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-385" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="Murray" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Page-6.jpg" alt="Murray" width="480" height="351" /></a></p>
<p><em>&#8216;At the Opera&#8217;, by Australian poet Les Murray.</em></p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/page-7.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-386" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="O'Sullivan" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/page-7.jpg" alt="O'Sullivan" width="480" height="509" /></a></p>
<p><em>&#8216;&#8230;If you like&#8217; (untitled), by NZ poet Vincent O&#8217;Sullivan. This is a very difficult image to scan, as it is printed very transparently, so this is a photo taken from an angle, unlike the other images in this post. </em></p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Page-8.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-388" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="Wootton" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Page-8.jpg" alt="Wootton" width="480" height="664" /></a></p>
<p><em>&#8216;No String Banjo&#8217;, by NZ poet Sue Wootton.</em></p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Page-9.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-389" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="Colophon" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/10/Page-9.jpg" alt="Colophon" width="480" height="668" /></a></p>
<p>If you would like to purchase a copy (although they are nearly sold out), please contact Donald Kerr, Special Collections Librarian at the University of Otago Library: donald[dot]kerr[at]otago[dot]ac[dot]nz.</p>
<p>I have written about the printing process further <a href="index.php?page_id=342">here</a>, plus there is more writing on my personal <a title="&amp;Duck blog" href="http://ampersandduck.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">blog</a> for the months of August and September, 2010. There is also an interview with me on Dunedin community television <a title="Dunedin Diary" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyl9ex8PgcY" target="_blank">here</a>, and for a short time there is a Radio NZ interview on The Arts on Sunday for the 17th of October <a title="Radio NZ" href="http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/art/art-20101017-1451-Australian_printmaker_Caren_Florance-048.mp3" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
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		<title>Printing poets at Otago</title>
		<link>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/08/17/printing-poets-at-otago/</link>
		<comments>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/08/17/printing-poets-at-otago/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Aug 2010 10:59:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>duckie</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Broadsides]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fine press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Otakou Press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Residencies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[broadside]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hand-press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[letterpress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[poetry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[poster]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[residency]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[woodtype]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Work in progress from my 2010 Dunedin print residency [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Twenty years ago, I visited Dunedin for a couple of days on a NZ touring holiday and loved it at first sight. I always hoped to get back here, and every time John Howard threatened to win an election, I would joke with my friends and family that I&#8217;d move to Dunedin if he did. I was getting quite serious when Kevin Rudd saved the day. Now I&#8217;ve made it back, thanks to a brilliant residency opportunity, and I&#8217;m telling people that if Tony Abbott wins, I may not go back to Australia. I&#8217;m getting quite serious about it.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/ampersandpr7.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-346" title="ampersandpr7" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/ampersandpr7-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a></p>
<p>The residency fell into my lap, through the generosity of master printer Alan Loney, who took it upon himself to introduce me to Donald Kerr, the Otago University Special Collections Librarian, when we were all at a conference in Brisbane called <a title="BSANZ 2009" href="http://www.library.uq.edu.au/fryer/limits/" target="_blank">The Limits of the Book</a>. Donald has custodianship of a wonderful collection of printing equipment, originally established as a bibliography teaching aid, and while continuing to be used as such, has also become a press in its own right: the Otakou Press. Established in 2003, it hosts an annual short-term <a title="PIR Otago" href="http://www.library.otago.ac.nz/SpecialCollections/printers.html" target="_blank">printer in residence</a> who produces a work that is sold – and usually sold out before the project is finished – and funds the next PIR the next year. The residency is now totally self-funded, and includes travel, accommodation (which includes food) and a stipend.</p>
<p>Donald and I had wonderful talks in Brisbane, about letterpress, the history of the equipment, and his liking of posters. Up to now all the printers had been New Zealanders, men, and had made books. Time for a change! We decided that I would be the 2010 PIR, and we would make posters, preferably using some of the wood type in the collection, which had scarcely been utilised.</p>
<p>We decided to have six poets, three from NZ and three from Australia. Donald picked out some names and emailed them all to see if they were amenable. Peter Porter and Les Murray were on his list, but PP died soon after, and we didn&#8217;t hear from Les, so we ended up with Vincent O&#8217;Sullivan, Michael Harlow and Sue Wootton batting on the NZ side, and Robert Adamson, Sarah Holland-Batt and Stephen Edgar for the Aussie side.</p>
<p>And then Donald got a letter in the post from Les, who doesn&#8217;t do computers. He&#8217;d LOVE to be in it. And, we both agreed, you can&#8217;t say no to Les. So. We had SEVEN poets, and I just didn&#8217;t have the time in the residency to add an extra NZer – seven was going to be pushing it. Did I mention that my edition is to be 100 of each, plus title page and colophon? That&#8217;s 900 pages, over a period of six weeks.</p>
<p>There was only so much planning I could do beforehand, since I hadn&#8217;t seen the type selection: read the poems (each poet sent a small selection of small, in most cases unpublished, poems to choose from) and select one for each, and make notes about what each inspired visually when I read them. We&#8217;d decided upon paper stock, and ordered it: Fabriano Rosapina, a lovely thick white Italian paper, that would need to be hand-torn into quarter-sheets.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/Vk4_printtrip.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-348" title="Vk4_printtrip" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/Vk4_printtrip-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="225" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>The poems I picked didn&#8217;t seem to have any connecting theme, apart from my liking them, so I decided to go with the idea that their number inspired and call the folio PRIME, playing with the idea of seven as a prime number and also that these are poets in their prime. Since then I have realised that the connection is one of process (in the use of wood type) and that the title could have reflected that, but I&#8217;m happy with Prime.</p>
<p><strong>Then</strong></p>
<p>Arriving at the University of Otago, settling in to my digs at the very comfy St Margaret&#8217;s College, and getting to know my way around were all the easy things to do at the start of my residency. Dunedin is beautiful, even in the depth of winter, and surprisingly warmer than Canberra, owing to what everyone says is a mild winter. The big learning curve was tackling the presses in the print room&#8230;</p>
<p>I am used to printing with a cylinder flatbed letterpress, which has built-in rollers that ink the type and can be adjusted to stay at a level that rolls the type the same way every time. Here in Dunedin, they have iron hand-presses only, which means that the printer has to hand-roll the ink onto the type every time they pull a print.</p>
<p>The up side of that is that you can print multiple colours at once. The down side is that you have to develop a good technique of rolling sensitively to the type&#8217;s needs, and evenly, and neatly. Every time. And I had to learn how to do it FAST, because there were those 900 pages to print, and time was ticking.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m talking in the past tense here, but as I write I&#8217;m still in the thick of it. I&#8217;m nearly halfway through my third week of the residency, and I&#8217;m only 300 pages in&#8230;</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/Columbian.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-345" title="Columbian" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/Columbian.jpg" alt="" width="405" height="540" /></a></p>
<p>This is the Columbian press, the grand madam of the room. She&#8217;s my press of choice from the three available to me, with her bobbing eagle counterweight and decorative dragons. I had a crash course in using her, including how to make my own brown-paper tympans and friskets.</p>
<p>The fact that I have to hand-roll the type, lower the frisket then the tympan, roll the bed under the platen and then pull the press handle for every. single. print. means that I am physically limited as to how intricate and/or layered these prints can be. I need to design them to be striking without being overly hard to produce.</p>
<p>I am also limited by the colours available to me. I can mix colours, but that means I also have to judge how much mixed ink I need for a print run, and the amount of ink varies according to how much surface area there is on the type; wood type is generally broad-surfaced and thirsty, whereas metal type is smaller and finer, needing finer layers of ink rolled with a lighter touch. When I first arrived, I only had blue, red, yellow, black and a transparent mixing white, but an ex-commercial printer who now works at the Uni of Otago library brought in a gift of some pristine tins of Pantone colours: a variety of reds (rhodamine, rubine, warm red, all fabulous and important distinctions when mixing colours), a green, orange and a good dense rich black that does not shade into grey like most offset blacks. A most welcome gift, and one I&#8217;m using gratefully.</p>
<p>The other limitation, or maybe I should say, addition to the palette of choices, is the type itself. The Otakou press has a house font, Garamond, which is one I use extensively in my studio as well. So there is a healthy amount of that, plus a number of drawers of assorted fonts like Gill, Imprint Shadow, Plantin, Gothic Condensed, but not in any great quantity or variety of sizes. There is also a lot of very beautiful wood type, in many sizes (wood type is measured in &#8216;lines&#8217; but I don&#8217;t know what &#8216;lines&#8217; actually means).</p>
<p>So, to print a poem as a poster, no matter what my idea is, I have to find a font that not only suits the feel of the poem, but also has enough characters in the drawer to set the whole poem and whatever I want to use around the page. I had to count every character in every poem and make a chart of the alphabet needs so that for each layout I can make sure that I can make the poem before I get halfway through and discover that there aren&#8217;t enough Hs or something. And you know poets&#8230; they tend to use strings of words with the same letters, even if they aren&#8217;t conscious that they&#8217;re doing it (I don&#8217;t even mean alliteration or rhyme&#8230; I mean just repetitions of letters generally).</p>
<p>My first attempt was a shape poem by NZ poet <a title="Sue Wootton" href="http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/Writers/Profiles/Wootton,%20Sue" target="_blank">Sue Wootton</a>, called <em>No Strings Banjo</em>. Donald thought that this would be one of the hardest poems to tackle, but actually, making a shape in letterpress is fairly easy if you stick to the basic principles of keeping all the lines the same length and making a shape within a block, like building pixels.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/banjo5.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-351" title="banjo forme" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/banjo5.jpg" alt="banjo forme" width="450" height="600" /></a></p>
<p>This turned into this:</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/banjo_BAT.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-352" title="banjo_BAT" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/banjo_BAT.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="600" /></a></p>
<p>Please excuse the torn base and the handwriting; this was my <em>bon-a-tirer</em> (good to print) reference copy for editioning purposes.</p>
<p>I didn&#8217;t know that Sue was from Dunedin until she walked into the studio for a peek, and to my delight she was delighted with the layout, and adored the Fancy Western wood type as much as I do.</p>
<p>I wasted a lot of paper on that first edition, until I worked out my rolling technique. Donald forgave me, as he knew I&#8217;d been chucked in at the deep end. I thought the edition printed ok finally, but I know that by the time I get to the end of the residency, I&#8217;ll look back at the quality of this first run and shudder.</p>
<p>The next batch, because I had such a clear picture in my head of the print, was Les Murray&#8217;s <em>At the Opera</em>. Donald wanted COLOUR, and so I decided to give him some red, a good patchy red velvet curtain of a large wooden M.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/Opera_forme1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-356" title="Opera_forme" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/Opera_forme1-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a></p>
<p>Like this one, all rolled up and ready to print as this:</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/Opera_red.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-357" title="Opera_red" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/Opera_red-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a></p>
<p>Another thing that Otakou Press has in abundance are wonderful vintage image blocks, ranging from whimsical Victoriana through to cheesy ads from the 70s and 80s, before everything moved to polymer plate. Donald wondered if I might not use a couple, like this one:</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/eyeshand.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-358" title="eyeshand" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/eyeshand-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a></p>
<p>He thought it might be a good way to illustrate the word <em>lorgnette</em>, which is the central premise of the poem, but  I decided to keep everything typographical, to stay away from the  ready-made images, and make people do what I suspect Les Murray wanted  people to do: go and look up the word.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/Opera_side2.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-360" title="Opera_side2" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/Opera_side2-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Now</strong></p>
<p>So I&#8217;m beavering away, even on the weekends, because doing something every day is the only way I&#8217;ll get everything done. I&#8217;ve had lots of visitors, including a bunch of wonderful librarians who have been helping me tear down the paper. Part of my brief was to promote the program locally, so I&#8217;ve had interviews with the local paper, the university paper and there&#8217;s one coming up with the local tv station. I&#8217;ve talked to English students about working visually with poetry from a textual viewpoint, and to printmaking students about working with text as image and markmaking with moveable type.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/100812_lr.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-364" title="100812_lr" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/100812_lr-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a></p>
<p>I&#8217;m discovering how fast I can work if I only have one roller, and one colour, but that working fast gives me blisters. I printed 130 pages (I allow for bad printing!) in two and a half hours on Sunday to produce an under-layer for my Vincent O&#8217;Sullivan poem layout:</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/rivers.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-361" title="rivers" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/rivers.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="533" /></a></p>
<p>It&#8217;s a poem about rocks in a river forming trains like bridal veils, so I&#8217;ve printed large pine type that has a distinct wood grain in a green-grey, and will make the three stanzas of the poem into charcoal-silver clumps that will have cool watery type trails.</p>
<p>While that layer dries, I&#8217;m working on the Stephen Edgar poem, a fabulous piece about imagining words in the air around oneself. While my inner vision is an airy one in dull colours, what has emerged from the type and colour resources (and Donald&#8217;s yearning for colour) is quite different. It&#8217;s early days yet, but I&#8217;ve pulled from the poem the notion of sunset revealing disintegrating words, so I&#8217;m using sunset colours of pinky-red and orange and black&#8230;</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/Edgar_proof2.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-362" title="Edgar_proof2" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/Edgar_proof2.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="600" /></a></p>
<p>This is hot off the press this afternoon, my first tentative pull in one colour to see if the composition works. I&#8217;ll be running this one through the press twice, like the O&#8217;Sullivan, which will cut into my time a bit. I can see the next two weeks being completely manic as I try to get everything printed in time for the folios to be collated by the last week. I&#8217;ve just finished talking to the most excellent university binder here about the folio design of black &amp; white with a strip of overprinted proof inset into the front. Yum!</p>
<p>I have been blogging my Dunedin experiences, both printing and otherwise, at my <a title="&amp;Duck blog" href="http://ampersandduck.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">personal blog</a>, and there are more photos on my <a title="&amp;Duck flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ampersandduck/" target="_blank">flickr</a> page.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/dragon.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-365" title="dragon" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/08/dragon.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="600" /></a></p>
<p>(BTW, If you&#8217;re interested in purchasing <em>Prime</em>, you can contact Donald by emailing donald[dot]kerr[at]otago[dot]ac[dot]nz. Because the press is not-for-profit, they retail the PIR produce at very affordable prices, and pump all the money back into the residency. This folio of seven posters will be only NZ$250 plus postage and packing (for the whole folio, not individual posters). We&#8217;ve already sold a third of the edition, so don&#8217;t delay if you want one.)</p>
<p>Cross-posted at <a href="http://slowmaking.blogspot.com/2010/08/printing-poetry-at-otago.html">Slow Making</a>.</p>
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		<title>Game Over broadsides</title>
		<link>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/05/13/game-over-broadsides/</link>
		<comments>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/05/13/game-over-broadsides/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 13 May 2010 07:27:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>duckie</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Broadsides]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[EASS Residents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Residency work]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Writings & musings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[broadside]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[EASS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[letterpress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[poster]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[residency]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ampersandduck.com/art/?p=309</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Game Over broadsides: Natalie Azzopardi (2010) [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Natalie Azzopardi</strong> is my first <a href="index.php?p=307">ANU EASS Ampersand Duck Broadside Residency</a> recipient.</p>
<p>When I gave the prize to her, she hadn&#8217;t officially left the ANU School of Art; they have a strange system where you do three years of study, then you exhibit as a graduate, and then you find out if you are doing Honours, and then you do another year and then exhibit as a graduate again. It isn&#8217;t unusual to win an exhibition prize as a 3rd Year graduate, and then be still study when you exhibit as an emerging artist. Of course, most of the time Patrons are warned when someone may be getting into Honours, but that&#8217;s not a foolproof system&#8230;</p>
<p>Actually, I knew Natalie would do honours, because her work is excellent, but she&#8217;d just spent a semester doing letterpress with me in class, and I didn&#8217;t want to wait another year and have her go all rusty on me. So I snaffled her when I could. I thought she could make her broadside in the uni holidays and then get on with her year.</p>
<p>That was a good plan, but&#8230; she got very interested in the process, and one idea led to another, and before we knew it, four months of Tuesdays had flown by and she&#8217;d produced four posters out of the one allotment of paper. I bet her teachers are pleased that we&#8217;ve finished, because now she&#8217;s really got no excuse but to do her honours work, which has very little to do with letterpress (she&#8217;s a Photography student who studied Book as a complementary unit).</p>
<p><img class="alignnone" title="Natalie" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4019/4334450392_278bce85eb_o.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="533" /></p>
<p>Here she is, back in Summer, starting on her Mario design, using grid paper to aid her set-up. The type tray is full of type ornaments not unlike <a title="frippery" href="http://cameronmoll.com/archives/2008/05/25_resources_ornaments_fleurons/" target="_blank">these ones</a>. After doing the Mario set-up, I found a box of dot ornaments, and she liked them so much that all the other prints restraint themselves to a dot matrix, so to speak.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m really happy with what she&#8217;s done. She&#8217;s learned a lot about type and presswork, and that if you plan ahead, you don&#8217;t have to print the same colour twice (or even three times, in one case!). But when the work is all intuitive and experimental, sometimes good things happen from the accidents of other things. Some of my favorite work in this project wasn&#8217;t able to be editioned, and we have a couple of copies each.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/05/gameover_lr.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-311" title="gameover offfset" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/05/gameover_lr.jpg" alt="" width="420" height="420" /></a></p>
<p>Like this page, where she has offset the ink by pressing one print against another to create a fantastic ghostly effect that works so well with the theme.</p>
<p>So the final editions reflect the planning she put into them. She started by thinking about Mario:</p>
<p><img class="alignnone" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="Mario" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/mario.jpg" alt="" width="432" height="590" /></p>
<p>And this was a real learning curve, trying to decide how to make it a three-colour print. In the end it became a two-colour print, because we thought that the subtle patterning in the rest of his shape would be overwhelmed by the dots if his face &amp; hands were printed in a solid colour, so we came up with the idea of embossing his skin.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="Mario face" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/mario_detail.jpg" alt="" width="392" height="404" /></p>
<p>There are 55 copies of this print, because we&#8217;d split the original paper ration into three smaller piles of 60 each, and she&#8217;d printed the first colour run of this and the next before deciding to play with the Space Invaders and thus dividing the ration even further!</p>
<p>And so then there is the Pacman print, of which there are 50 copies:</p>
<p><img class="alignnone" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="Pacman" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/pacman.jpg" alt="" width="448" height="613" /></p>
<p>And then we get to the two Space Invader prints:</p>
<p><img class="alignnone" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="Space Invaders 1" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/space_invaders1.jpg" alt="" width="432" height="595" /></p>
<p>This one has 20 copies,</p>
<p>&#8230; and this one has 14!</p>
<p><img class="alignnone" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="Space Invaders 2" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/space_invaders2.jpg" alt="" width="432" height="590" /></p>
<p>The wood type was the last thing printed on all of them. Natalie knew what she wanted, but it was a matter of finding the perfect font and working out the colours. Originally we&#8217;d thought of printing all the text in the same spot on each poster, in one unifying colour, but once she looked at all the prints together, it was obvious that they needed individual treatment. Which meant three more colour runs! With letterpress it isn&#8217;t just a matter of changing a colour; you have to ink up the press, print, then clean off the press and then start again. It&#8217;s laborious, and takes patience and dedication, which Natalie has.</p>
<p>While they&#8217;re editioned, each of the prints is really an individual, as feeding the paper through the press is done by a human, not a mechanical process&#8230; there are slight variations of alignment which means that your print, signed by the artist and chopmarked with the Ampersand Duck mark, is really your own print, and not a unit in a mass-produced project.</p>
<p>So. These fabulous broadsides are available from my Duckshop (&lt;== on the sidebar, to your left). Don&#8217;t miss out, they will hopefully all sell, and that may fund a part of Natalie&#8217;s next project, whatever that may be. I&#8217;m positive this won&#8217;t be her last printing experience!</p>
<p>Stay tuned for a very different broadside experience when <a title="Pete" href="http://petemclean.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Peter McLean</a> makes his edition with me.</p>
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		<title>Arsehattery broadside</title>
		<link>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/03/18/arsehattery-broadside/</link>
		<comments>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/03/18/arsehattery-broadside/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:44:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>duckie</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Broadsides]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fine press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[broadside]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[letterpress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[poster]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[woodtype]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ampersandduck.com/art/?p=154</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Arsehattery broadside, 2007. [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3>ARSEHATTERY</h3>
<p style="text-align: left;">Definition: the ridiculous habit of talking through your <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">arse</span> hat. <a title="arsehattery" href="http://www.wordnik.com/words/arsehattery" target="_blank">Proof</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/03/arsehattery.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-155" style="border: 1px solid black;" title="arsehattery" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/03/arsehattery.jpg" alt="arsehattery" width="358" height="850" /></a></p>
<p>My small contribution to Australia’s 2007 election struggle.<br />
Still available, a great souvenir of a thankfully bygone era.</p>
<p>Poster, 510 x 230 mm, handset letterpress using wood and metal type, printed on cream coated offset paper.</p>
<p>Due to the nature of type and ink, each one has its individual qualities, and they look grand and glossy on the coated paper, and slightly bitten into the surface. Yummy!</p>
<p>The chase has been dismantled, so while there has been no final edition number, there will be no more printed, so stocks will run out, and there are only a few left.</p>
<p>AUS$13 EACH<br />
Thanks to the non-weighty goodness of paper, multiple copies (within reason) can be sent with only one postage charge.<br />
<a href="index.php?page_id=23">Contact me</a> for more details or to purchase. I will send you an invoice that can be paid by Paypal, EFT or cheque. </p>
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		<title>Country Show 2</title>
		<link>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/03/16/country-show-2/</link>
		<comments>http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/03/16/country-show-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:55:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>duckie</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Broadsides]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[exhibitions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fine press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[oddments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Past]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[letterpress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[poster]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vandercook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[woodtype]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ampersandduck.com/art/?p=130</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Country Show 2 posters [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Country Press 2</em> was an exhibition at the ANU School of Art in October 2009. There was one of these the year before, hence it was number two.</p>
<p>I offered to make a promotional poster that could double as my work in the show.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 510px"><img title="Country Show 2 posters" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2526/4063162716_6dfb13faf5.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" /><p class="wp-caption-text">&#39;wood chop&#39; is on the left, &#39;fairy floss&#39; on the right</p></div>
<p>This was the first thing I printed in my new studio, on my new press, and I used the poster to test out what Kitty the Vandercook could do&#8230; so each poster took multiple passes of the press. The metal type (the names) took two passes for each colour scheme, and the wood type (the top half of the poster) took four passes of the press each, one for the background colour run (hard to see in the reproduction!), two for the main colours, and one for the &#8212; hand-applied &#8212; rainbow roll on the number. The stars were then hand cut and stamped.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">
<div id="attachment_134" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 544px"><a href="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/03/poster_A5.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-134 " title="poster_A5" src="http://ampersandduck.com/art/wp-includes/images/2010/03/poster_A5-668x1024.jpg" alt="" width="534" height="819" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">The poster itself is quite large; we scanned one to make an A5 invite for the show.</p></div>
<p>One of the (many) lessons learned with these posters is that soy-based ink doesn&#8217;t like drying on coated paper stock. I can&#8217;t buy oil-based ink locally anymore, so the learning curve was a double one working with the press, and working with the ink. Still, I think they worked out ok. There are 10 of each colour.</p>
<p>These are still available, and priced at Aus$50 each plus postage and handling. </p>
<p><a href="index.php?page_id=23">Contact me</a> for more details or to purchase. I will send you an invoice that can be paid by Paypal, EFT or cheque. </p>
<p>(I also made some quick splash posters to hang around the campus. They  were souvenired pretty quickly!)</p>
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