I inked my press for the first time today. I became impatient with myself and instead of printing the drawings I’ve been working on (and still haven’t made into plates) I threw on a linoleum block that I carved a while back. It’s a little cicada. Easy to set up, both because its roughly square, and because of the nature of linoleum and wood cuts, its not supposed to look super refined. Not something I plan on mass producing or anything, but it was exciting to see my press print some ink.
I also had my first press related injury today (if you don’t count paper cuts and bruises and strained muscles) and more than I am hurt, I’m bummed that it took approximately zero minutes of printing for me to crush a finger. Alex was there and moved the flywheel to release my finger, and my resident hand surgeon (pictured below) had just gotten home and checked it out. It got caught between the wooden countertop and the back of the platen. We pretty much immediately unscrewed the countertop and moved it back as much as we could, so that if it happened again, there would be more space and wouldn’t crush so hard. It certainly taught me a valuable lesson about how to grab the paper on my particular press, and hopefully will save me a more serious injury later.
My dad panning for gold during a break between surgeries, on a machine he’s running off my mom’s car battery. You know, the usual. He’s right outside the garage where Alex and I are working… all just doing our thing.
Alex throwing a plate.
The Lissendens at work.
Our studio mascot in front of the kilns.