Nautilus Specimen Mini Prints

Because I love my little nautilus cross-section rubber stamp printing element so much, I decided to do a small edition of mini prints, printed in rubber-based ink on some very nice rough watercolour paper. I hand-embossed a border around the image area to give it a little more focus. The edition size will be 9 (plus an artist's proof), and I'll be selling them for the princely sum of $5 (check my Etsy shop in a day or two, once they've had time to dry and I've had time to list them).

Letterpress: Hand-Coloured Cards in Progress

Here's what I'll be spending my long weekend on:

All of these cards--just under 30 of each--need hand-colouring before I can crop, fold and package them.

 Don't worry, though, I'm not going to be spending hours on each one. Just a couple quick washes of watercolour, or else I'd have to charge so much no one would buy them.

I letterpress printed them on good-quality watercolour paper and left the paper a bit big so I'd have room to paint.

You may recognize the images from this year's calendar Tentacle & Carapace. I figured I aleady had the plates, so I might as well use them.

And living in a coastal city, sea things are popular year-round.

So You Think You Can Sew

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. I was away for a couple of weeks, then sick, then, well, out of the habit of regular posting, I guess. I've got a tonne of cool things planned for the next few months, though, so I hope to blog lots.

First, here is something cool I got for Christmas from my mom:

It's a Cricut Expressions die-cutting machine. They're aimed more at scrapbooking and "arts and crafts" (not in the William Morris sense) folks, but there's third-party software that allows you to cut your own designs. I haven't attempted that yet, though it is my ultimate goal, and being able to cut my own designs is really the only reason I wanted one. But I have tried the cartridge that came with the machine, and was able to make some little envelopes for some letterpress valentines I printed ages ago, complete with a heart on the flap. I didn't take any pics, but I'll put them in my Etsy shop soon.

Another cool-but-useful thing I got this year is a fancy new Dremel rotary tool (from BillyZ). I did have a no-longer-produced "Wizard" rotary tool made by Mastercraft, but this one is so far beyond that . . . Anyway, I have lots of little tasks that will be made easier, plus a whole pile of new ideas.

This particular model even has attachments that will turn it into a jigsaw and a planer (I don't have those yet, but they're on my list--right after the router attachment). I can envision wooden book covers made easier, plus little wooden boxes. I love boxes! I might have to make a trip to Home Depot for some wood soon.

And none of this is what I was going to write about when I started this post. What I was going to write about, and what the title refers to, is this:

Every once in a while I get it into my head that I can sew. Or that I can sew well, I mean. I've been puttering with sewing machines since I was six (or somewhere thereabouts) when my mother let me use scraps of fabric to make little purses and bags and simple Barbie clothes (that last one required the assistance of my older sister). But I'm not exactly gifted with a needle.

Anyway, my sewing machine (which I sold to a friend and then bought back when she moved away) had been sitting untouched for a year when I suddenly got Ideas (yes, with a capital "I"). So I made a pattern for a stuffed octopus (yes, out of my head--one of my other occasional hallucinations is that I can make 3-d shapes from my Ideas). Then I cut it out of some fabric I'm not likely to use for anything else, and attempted to sew it together.

In retrospect, a different order of assembling the pieces would probably have helped with some of the pointy seams, but it turned out rather well, considering. A few tweaks and I think it will be done. Alas, it takes to long too make up to be able to sell as a toy, though maybe with some different fabric and hand painting (or hey, hand-printing . . . hmmmmmm) I might be able to market it to the "art doll" folks. Or maybe I could sell the pattern, though I'd have to learn how to draw a pattern properly.

Things to fix: the part where the legs join the head needs work. It's fine and the front and back, but too difficult and not so nice looking on the sides. Not too difficult a fix, though (I think, maybe). Also, the legs. I like them, but I think I should have made the left and right sides different, instead of mirrored. Also more curl in some of them. Again, not too hard to fix.

Tentacle and Carapace

"Tentacle and Carapace: a letterpress printed calendar of sea creatures" is my hand-printed calendar for 2011. I'm so glad I had it finished before the Halifax Crafters fair this year, as I sold quite a few (last year I only had a few pages done of my flying machines calendar and though I had them on display, I couldn't actually sell any).

All of the names of the months are printed from vintage wood type in the collection of the Dawson Printshop at NSCAD, where I still do most of my printing.

The days of the week and dates of each month are printed from polymer plates. The type is Eccentric, with Cochin for the subtitle on the front.

The sea creatures were also printed from polymer plates, made from my own drawings. (If you read this blog much, or follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, you may remember me writing about working on them.)

If you'd like to purchase a copy of the calendar, you'll find it on Etsy and ArtFire, or you can email me at anagramforink at gmail dot com.

Octoberpus! Also, a Fox.

OK, I promised a sneak peek at the new calendar I've been working on, so here's a terrible iPhone photo of the October page.

Once I do the final trim I'll scan all the pages and take some artsy photos for my Etsy and Artfire shops.

The other big bit of holiday printing is this year's card design, the snowflake-catching fox. Here's a scan of the front of the printed card.

It's so hard to give any real idea of what a letterpress-printed card is actually like in person. Neither a scan nor a photograph can do it justice. It's something you have to touch. I love the tactility of letterpress, but it's so hard to convey to online customers . . .

Holiday Card 2010 Sketch (Fox!)

I'm planning to drive into Halifax several days next in the next couple of weeks to print at the Dawson Printshop, as I may (or may not) have a small print job. To make it worth the trip, and to get myself to stop being so lazy, I need to get my own work ready to go and print at the same time. Which means I need to get my files for polymer plates sent to film by the end of the week.

I have two holiday card ideas: the fox below and one with a squid and a pulp magazine theme, which I may or may not be able to pull off.

Now I have to figure out the exact proportions and boundaries of the card, and decide on colours. I'm thinking black, red and something very transparent and almost colourless (possibly a blue). The tongue should really be pink, but I'm not sure I want to do a whole separate press run for that. I usually try to keep multi-colour cards to three colours for the sake of economy. Two is even better.

I'm also starting to plan my 2011 letterpress calendar. It would be nice to have it finished in time for the Halifax Crafters sale this year (assuming I go). Last year I had a couple of pages done and took pre-orders and emails, but I think I could have sold a lot more if I'd had them done and on the table. It'll be similar to last year's, and I may even re-use the same wood type and number plates, but I'll use different colours and images, and maybe even a different proportion for the pages.

So what I'm thinking is cephalopods (that is, octopus, squid, cuttlefish, nautilus) OR rayguns. They'll be my own drawings this time, instead of vintage images. Anyone out there have any preference? Or a better idea? Someone on Facebook suggested cephalopods with rayguns, which I like, but it might be a bit over the top.

Bees!

Here's the last of the three sets of artist trading cards I've been working on lately.

I think of the three specific bee images, the bumble bee (above) was most successful, while the honey bee (below) was least successful.

I used a conceit I'm rather fond of, which is to make them look like illustrations from an old natural science book. I did the same thing with Leonardo's Clockwork Scarab (which you can still purchase from my Etsy shop), and with a intaglio print of moths (which will soon be available in my Etsy shop).

I like science. Science is cool. Anyway. My favorite of the set of four, somewhat to my surprise, as it was my least favorite when I did the sketches, is this one, a little bee anatomy chart:

These have now gone off to their swap host in Germany, and I should soon be receiving little bee cards by other artists all over the world. Very cool.

Next up for ATC swaps, I have some nursery rhyme characters and some Norse mythology, followed by peacocks and mushrooms. I do love to keep busy.

And for non-trading-card art, I have several ideas in my head that will need to come out soon. I won't say much yet, as I want to see if I can make the sketches come anywhere close to what's in my head first, but a few hints: one is inspired by bird evolution and Gideon Grave, gentleman adventurer (a character from my Frisland stories); one by a line of poetry with an octopus in; and one by a scene from White Foxes, Full Moon, the Frisland novel I'm working on.

And I still have a number of book projects on the go. I have something I was asked to do for my sister eons ago, which I hope to actually get done for her birthday this year. Then I have "A Love Letter to E.A. Poe" to bind--it's a book of prints I did inspired by "The Raven." I just have to decide if I'm going to include the text of the poem, in which case I have some letterpress printing to do. It'll be in an edition of 3. And I've got some old zinc printing plates I'm going to turn into covers for blank journals. They've got fishes on them! These will be rather expensive blank journals, I'm afraid, but I think they will be very, very cool.

Watch This. Right Now.

Click this.

Wednesday Wishlist: Octopus Love

So, it's getting close to that love-it-or-hate-it holiday, Valentine's day, and to celebrate I present to you the perfect Valentine's gift for your sweetheart. If your sweetheart happens to be me.


This is the Octopus Love pendant from OctopusME Jewelry on Etsy. Each piece is hand cast in sterling silver from real octopus tentacles, then hand finished. I love just about everything in this shop, but mostly the tentacles.

Wednesday Wishlist: Octopus Pendant

For this week's Wednesday Wishlist, I bring the truly wonderful work of Sheryl Westleigh (aka noadi on Etsy). I had such a hard time choosing one piece to feature here that I have to recommend you go browse through her whole shop. It's "Squid & Science Inspired Jewelry"--truly an artist after my own heart.


I finally settled on the Orange Octopus above to show you, but I love them all. Each one is hand-crafted from polymer clay and you can tell from the photos how lovingly made they are. Not only are there octopuses, there are also squid, cuttlefish, nautiluses, and things in jars! (And yes, I would happily trade a calendar or book or something for one of these. Or real money, if I had it.)