Pressed for Time.

Wooowee. The past couple weeks have FLOWN BY. That's what happens I guess when you're keepin' busy! I have a couple commissions I'm working on right now and last week the U of A Foundation and my mentor, Karen, asked if I could quickly letterpress some broadsides for an upcoming event the next a week.

Uhhh... OF COURSE. I was stoked and honored and excited to get to work! Which was good because letterpress printing is fairly time consuming (BUT SO WORTH IT!) and I needed to hit the ground running if I were to make the deadline for the event!

The broadside is for an important donor that passed away, Agnese Nelms Haury and it features Alison Hawthorne Deming's poem "Sanctuary."

The door to the photo polymer plate machine room. I have heard so many scary stories of people having students walk in on them and accidentally exposing their plates to light that I ALWAYS make a sign reminding people to knock! Plates are expensive and I can't imagine how sad it would be to have a little oopsie! moment like that!

Based off the poem and the purpose of the broadsides, I made a sweet and simple pattern of monarch butterfly wings to be printed behind the poem's type.

I printed it with a split fountain/rainbow roll and it was SO FUN.

What's a rainbow roll? It's where you put one color ink on one side of the press and another on the opposite side. When they rollers turn, the colors mix and create a unique, rainbow-y sherbert-y, completely unexpected color effect! I love how each print is slightly different, perfect to print butterflies which have uniquely patterned wings!

I have never printed this way before because I have been wary about the prints getting too muddy  BUT I just made sure to lift the rollers up between each print so they wouldn't mix too much!

I spent my whole weekend printing and when I got home each night, I passed out and woke up with my entire body aching. A satisfying ache though! I had a lot of fun with the project and I haven't had the opportunity to letterpress for a couple months so I definitely missed it.

Here is the finished product! 200 broadsides and 200 tags. (Broadsides 4.5x12 inches, tags 3x4inches) They wanted the broadsides to be sort of like large book marks so people could use them for coffee table books if they didn't have the space to hang/display them.

Time ended up not really being a problem at all. I finished two days before the deadline and I packaged them up and they're ready to be delivered early tomorrow morning! The ladies at the Foundation said they were going to assemble little bags for everyone attending and attach the tags to packets of seeds. SO CUTE. I love the nature theme!

I can't wait to see their expressions when they get to hold the finished product! Letterpress is so special.

xoxo

PSSSST! Do you want to have something made for YOU by ME? If you want to talk possible commission work, I'd love to chat! Shoot an email to ddeloren@email.arizona.edu OR danielledelorenzo@msn.com