Letterpress printing is always slow, but sometimes it's really slow. Especially when you create the design yourself, from scratch. I've been working on this project since early October, and I still only have one of the two colours printed.
These berries were pretty enough to be inspiring, so I made several sketches of them one sunny afternoon.
Berry helped by bringing out her crayons and working alongside me. "You drawing a plant, mum-mum? That pretty."
Several weeks passed while I refined the sketches, scanned them, created the final design in Illustrator, and sent the separations away to have plates made.
I needed the berries again to mix the right shade of ink. I got it, even though it looks orange on the press!
Each colour has to be printed separately on the press, with a complete cleaning in between runs. I've only printed the red berries so far, and I'm still looking for enough time to print the leaves – so I can't show you anything!
I promise when they're finished, I'll share.
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