Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

This year’s winter print continues in the series of ‘winter activities’.

My research started by trawling the computer for figures. I love the shape of certain figures with accentuated shapes in legs, arms or body. I find a lot of inspiration in mid-century illustrations e.g. the work of Miroslav Sasek. I also admire the work of contemporary illustrator Bendik Kaltenborn – his characters are so expressive. It’s an illustration of his I took as inspiration for this year’s winter print.

Illustration – Bendik Kaltenborn

I’ll start with a quick sketch of what I want my illustration to look like

I start building my lock up from my sketch. I’ll lay the drawing down and build on top of it so that I get the proportions and angles correct when I’m bending the rule, used in this piece for the jacket. You can read my blog on how I do this here.

I add the spacing as i’m type setting as if I were locking up the character without the snow. Once the character is all set and secure I then begin to take away the spacing around it piece by piece and fill this with leading and full stops for the snow. I do it this way round so that it is easier to lock up and I know how long my lead lengths need to be, it would be a hard task to lock the image up straight from leads! There would be a lot of frustration with type falling all over the place!

Once the image is all locked up with the leads in place I then dissect the forme to colour separate. This means taking out all the parts that I want printed in the 2nd colour and filling the gaps with the same size spacing. For the bent brass rule I use some thick paper which can bend to the shape I need it to. I also don’t have leads at my disposal to be bending!

For the 2nd layer I place all the type that I took out back in, and take out the type that I just printed with and fill this with the same size spacing.  The type should then register with the first printed layer.

They are printed in an edition of 100, most of which are for letterpress card exchange groups, but there will be a few to purchase here.