Printing 2013

This year the Parsnip Press split between 2 venues, typesetting was done in Oxfordshire but some of the printing was done on a Vandercook proofing press in Ben's kitchen in London.

The final version of the card had evolved quite a bit from our initial ideas, mainly due to the fact we have a limited range of type and ink colours.

Photos start from the bottom again:

Looking down at a printed card before its removed from the press

The Arab is a treadle press

Closer up

Ruth placing a card in the press

The type for the inside locked up

Ben printing

Working out the vertical position of the type – left hand one is the final one

First card with centred type

Re-setting the type to centre it

There is ink on this press, honest! Its just a tint.

First attempt to put the type over the star - our intial type

layout, though nice, does not work with our star!

Back to Oxfordshire, type locked up in the chase for the Arab press

Jamie and Timmy having a go

Removing the card – now at the other end of the press

Just after printing

The press in the kitchen

Timmy having a go

Inserting a card – then you wind the handle to bring the

card, on the rollers, onto the linocut

Ben printing on the Vandercook

The linocut (with ink on it)

First proof – oops its a bit too tinted!

Mixed ink - we're still not sure why it went greenish

Mixing a tint – the toffee looking stuff is the tinting ink

Colour trials

Colour option - bright orange!

Type locked up in the Vandercook Press

Ben working on the linocut star

The type for proofing

Photos of printing 2012

Start from the bottom

Proofs of the insides

Green ink on the Arab press ready to print the insides

Printed cards

The extra papers!

I had to mix white ink with the green as the green

by itself looked black on the red card

Removing the card after printing

To print off the edge of the card I needed to use another piece

of paper every time to catch the ink from the rest of the type

Using the press

Laying the card on the type

Inking the type

Colour tests

The proofing press I used to print the front of the cards

Type with ink

Card size and type angle options

Initial idea - printing off the edges of the card

The type

Initial ideas/tests

2012 Christmas card printing

Towards the end of 2012 Ben was very busy and didn't have time to come to Oxford to do printing, but having been on maternity leave for over 4 months I wanted a chance to do something else for a few hours so I didn't want to miss a year of Christmas cards.

I won't use the Arab press on my own, so I had to come up with a design that I could print using a hand roller and the proofing press – so it was back to the only wood type we have. But printing by hand meant that I could print off the edges of the card without having to crop the card after printing.

Ben was able to come to Oxford for one day to help print the inside of the card using the Arab.

But printing by hand meant that I couldn't spread the ink very thinly and so there was a lot of ink on each card and it was still tacky when we sent them out, so we had to send them out with an ink warning!