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Chad Pastotnik, Deep Wood Press

~ Fine letterpress and intaglio printing ~ Celebrating 30 years in 2022

Chad Pastotnik, Deep Wood Press

Category Archives: Equipment

A Return to Process and Dialogue

11 Saturday Oct 2014

Posted by Deep Wood Press in Books, Education, Equipment, Letterpress, Oak Knoll Fest, Printing

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

book arts, Chad Pastotnik, Deep Wood Press, education, Letterpress, Linotype, Oak Knoll Fest, Printing

First off, having recently returned from a most encouraging showing of my books at Oak Knoll this past week, I must say thank you to many who have followed this blog and whose friendships I continue to make and cement in the “real” world. I was amazed how many mentioned reading this or the social media bits of DWP’s online presence and I feel I must apologize for this blog having turned more into a PR tool or travelogue. It was my intention from the beginning for this to be more about process and dialogue. So let’s begin again and I will attempt to stay more on track though I will still mention new work or events but direct you to other sources for more details. This will be a somewhat longer post to get things rolling.

type hand-set on a curve

type hand-set on a curve

Dialogue – what is letterpress printing?

At these events and exhibits I have the pleasure of the company of fellow printers as well as a cultivated relationship with private and institutional collectors of my books. It is with interest I have noted a recurring theme of discussion which has been raging in the fine press world for over two decades but it seems the buying public is just starting to wonder: What is letterpress printing? Allow me a couple of paragraphs to cover the general process and history, neither exhaustive or fully concise:

  By definition I suppose it is printing from a relief surface via letterpress. Letterpress is a term that has only come into existence really in the past 50 years and has morphed into both verb and noun use. Prior to this time it was the only widely used reproductive process as innovated by Gutenberg in the 15th century and it was merely “printing” and those who printed were “Printers” Today, those of us who continue the tradition, draw on this legacy for better or worse.

  Gutenberg’s legacy is that of the matrix from which type is cast in a mould. Type is something you can pick up with your fingers and compose into words, form sentences, paragraphs and pages with. It is the famous “26 soldiers of lead” which conquers ignorance and tyrants. Type remained in this form until the late 19th century when machine composition became a possibility with the technology and resources made available by the industrial revolution and manifested by Monotype composition casting equipment and the Linotype and Intertype line casting innovations. Both of these new means of putting words into page form allowed for composition to be done via a keyboard and then cast into type metal from that action to form the composed page. With this innovation and increase in production some compromise was made in typography as compared to hand composition but refinements could be used to help negate and bridge the narrow gap. This technology remained in place essentially until the 1980’s with the advent of the ease of modern desktop publishing with the dark days of film composition enjoying a thankfully brief stay in the 60’s-70’s.

So why is the question being asked now – what is letterpress printing? What is new now and not part of the 500-year-old tradition of printing is the advent of polymer plate printing. Arguably this technology is what may have saved letterpress from near death and made it accessible and popular with small presses offering wedding invitations, business identities, packaging, ephemera and – books. Printing from plates is relatively easy and they are created predominantly on computers. No knowledge of the history or the art of printing is necessary nor are many of the skills ingrained in producing printing with metal types needed.

Nearly everyone with a computer can compose text, add illustration and even make a book. True also that anyone given a box of paint and a brush can paint a picture. The quality of the product created is the sum of the individual’s understanding of the process, their artistic abilities, level of craftsmanship and, I would add, their understanding of the history of their craft and those who shaped it. There are countless programs now in higher education across the US, the UK and beyond teaching letterpress and book arts courses in degree programs and, thankfully, almost all of them start teaching students the basics of hand typography – assembling type you can pick up from cases and composing the project as has been done since Gutenberg. The polymer machine sits in the corner biding it’s time and offering sweet promise of relative ease and speedy efficiency to be utilized later.

I fully acknowledge that now, at this point in time, it is very difficult to assemble a letterpress shop. The machines, fonts of type and supporting industry revolving around letterpress ceased to exist in the 60’s for the most part. Twenty two years ago when I started printing book forms I received the bulk of my equipment for free or little money merely to make room in more progressive established print shops for more storage or that new all-in-one color laser/dye sub/inkjet thing that did 90% of what their customers wanted. What is left now of the equipment is often quite expensive to purchase and, while type still exists, it is not the sturdy foundry type of the days of old and still commands a premium prices as well. Printing from plates also has the potential of producing work of the highest quality indistinguishable from metal type except maybe for being “too perfect” – not a guarantee but full potential if used by a typographer and designer skilled in better than average desktop publishing software.

linotype and hand set composition on the press
hand set type form on press
polymer plate going on a press

WHAT IS LETTERPRESS PRINTING?

Is it merely printing from a raised surface? Or is it more?

What is it to you? To what do you give value?

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The Mad Angler’s Manifesto ~ the details

05 Thursday Sep 2013

Posted by Deep Wood Press in Broadsides, Letterpress, Linotype, The Mad Angler's Manifesto, Trout

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Broadside, Chad Pastotnik, Color reduction linocut, Fine Press, Letterpress, Linotype, Michael Delp

The Mad Angler's Manifesto

The Mad Angler’s Manifesto

So there was this poem and…   Well initially I thought to do an intaglio print to accompany this but I’ve been on the linoleum kick lately after the six color blocks for The Path so decided to try a couple new things. A color reduction print, always boggled my mind but why not? Maximum sheet size for my Vandercook proof press in close registration on a 10 x 20″ linoleum block? Why not? eight press runs  –   they’re short, ok…

A relief printing color reduction print is started with the lightest color and only removing the whites, the negative space around the overall image. Then progressively removing more of the linoleum to create the next layer of color. Taking into account the ink transparency and how how it interacts with the previous layer. Looking at it close, in visual reading range (about 5-6′) and from across the room as a compositional complement to what is going on with the text. Just things I think about… Different things happen with the trout at various distances, something your computer just can’t translate…

The nature of reduction printing precludes any future editions. The block is systematically destroyed in the creation of the finished print.

From the beginning I planned to add a bit of red/sienna in the fins to the image and so left those areas open with the white to hit with some water color at the very end. If those areas had remained to print the sienna at the end it would have to have been over the black and that would have meant a very opaque ink, probably two press runs of a silver and then the sienna over it (which would have been cool) but I wanted it to remain washed out and transparent. I also wanted the salvaged block of the last run to be used for an under print on the secondary edition. (see below)

In this case:

  • The text block and title
  • Light blue
  • Grey
  • Yellow green
  • Mid Green
  • Olive
  • Umber
  • Black

Here’s the progression in a pictorial form:

It begins
Color developes
More color

More
What’s left of the block
A little pop

The Mad Angler’s Manifesto

The specs

Composed on the Linotype in 24pt Lydian with Americana Display type in 144pt with an 8 line Americana piece of wood type for the drop cap. Printed on Somerset Book 175gsm cotton paper in an edition of 50. 18 5/8 x 26 inches (47 x 66 cm), signed and numbered by the author and artist.

The secondary edition is of the poem printed on some white domestic commercial stock with a rough finish I’ve had left over for years now and features the result of the final linoleum block state. What is the black in the previous edition is now a dab of raw sienna mixed with heavy plate oil to create an underprinted image of the trout with the poem. Edition of 36, 12 3/4 x 26 inches (32 x 66 cm), signed and lettered by the author and artist.

Secondary edition. The Mad Angler's Manifesto

Secondary edition. The Mad Angler’s Manifesto

That’s a really fat 21″ brooky/brown and this is how I typically see trout this size – swimming away from me…. Mike is coming by tomorrow morning to sign and number them with me, not enough time to get out on the water though.

Better pictures and available to purchase on my website next week when I return from the Kerrytown Bookfest in Ann Arbor this weekend. Come see me Sunday if you happen to be in the area. I’ll have books, prints, ephemera and will be demonstrating intaglio printmaking once again. If your kid is cute enough (and well behaved) they get a free signed print.

Update: Here’s Mike and me signing off on the edition.

Michael Delp and Chad Pastotnik signing the edition.

Michael Delp and Chad Pastotnik signing the edition.

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New broadside – The Mad Angler’s Manifesto

17 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by Deep Wood Press in Broadsides, Letterpress, Linotype, Printing, The Mad Angler's Manifesto, Trout

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Broadside, Fine Press, future projects, Letterpress, Linotype, literature, Michael Delp, The Mad Angler's Manifesto

I’ve know Michael Delp for many years now and have admired his writing so when I became aware of his new series of Mad Angler poems I knew I had to finally get a project together with him. I know I’ve been doing a fair amount of trout related themes here in the shop latey – bare with me, I know it is an affliction of some sort – I’ve some Oscar Wilde in the works as well to please the non afflicted lovers of fine books and print.

24ptLydian

The Mad Angler’s Manifesto is a longish poem, far to many words to hand set from the case as I would quickly run out of sorts (individual pieces of type) in a large size that usually is only used for headlines or titles. So for the past week I had been experimenting with something new on my Linotype and attempted to cast 24pt faces on an advertising mold. I’m happy to say that after some initial fiddling it has been a great success. As the Linotype is only able to cast 30 pica lines (5 inches) many of the lines of the poem had to be pieced together from multiple slugs into 50 pica lines – further complicated by only having 2 matrices for the letter “h”.


Then the galley of slugs is brought over to the press room and proofed on the Vandercook.

anglerformAfter a couple corrections and the addition of leading, a title and a few other refinements another proof is made.

proofNext up is to finish the large linocut I’m working on to accompany the text. So far the specs are: 24pt Lydian with 144pt Americana title on a 18.5 x 26 inch sheet. More to come soon as I hope to have it done for this years Kerrytown Bookfest in Ann Arbor.

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