I ran across this pochoir and letterpress print by Jeome Rettich (b1915-d2006) the other day. I love the combination of color with the blind embossing. This print, and others, are being sold by Rettich’s grandson here. There’s a facebook page with more information here. If you don’t know about the stenciling technique pochoir, I’ve written … Continue reading Pochoir & Blind Emboss
One printing technique I find fascinating is pochoir — using stencils to color a picture. The Firestone Library at Princeton blog has a great post showing the progression of applying the stencils and how the print, by Thomas Maitland Cleland, below was made. Here is the finished print, followed by the steps of the progression. … Continue reading Pochoir Progression
I edit a quarterly journal called Ampersand. Last year, someone gave me all the issues of Bookways, a book-arts journal published from 1991-95. They’ve been wonderful to read. The journal was letterpress printed and is full of reviews of fine press books and poetry chapbooks. The first issue I picked up had an article by … Continue reading Pochoir
I bought several pochoir brushes at an art expo in town the other day. By coincidence, I also ran across an artist’s book with pochoir illustrations called How to Say ‘I Love You’ in Greenlandic, an Arctic Alphabet by Nancy Campbell. She says How to say ‘I love you’ in Greenlandic is an introduction to … Continue reading How to Say “I Love You”
One of the most famous and earliest artists’ books is Prose du Transsibérien et de la petite Jeanne de France, with a poem by Blaise Cendrars and pochoir illustration by Sonia Delaunay from 1913. I got to see a copy, with all its spectacular color, once at a museum in San Francisco. (See a much … Continue reading Sonia Delaunay
This past week I finished printing my pochoir and letterpress broadside. The quote is “What’s important in life is not the triumph but the struggle.” The background grid is hand stenciled with a color palette of greens and blues and the text is printed letterpress in blue/white. This is an edition of 14. This is … Continue reading Triumph or Struggle