I’ve been dithering about this for years, but finally started doing some research on small portable presses, as my interest in printmaking has grown to be an important part of my visual art practice. So it was with lots of excitement last week that the small (heavy enough!) box containing a new press was delivered!
I needed something useful but compact. Since I have no running water (or space) in my studio, this press, as with the press I borrowed a number of years ago, will live downstairs in the living room. Inking plates and paper preparations will take place in the kitchen, a short walk away through the hall. The press I borrowed before was larger, but I usually work fairly small when printing. Size and cost were, of course, considerations in the purchase, but I received some good advice from a colleague and when I actually took out a measuring tape, the model I ended up with suits my needs.
Delivery only took a week (from The Netherlands) and unpacking and settling took a half hour! The table I had planned for it is square whereas the press is rectangular. Since it needs to be screwed down to the surface for added stability, my husband has offered to make a bespoke table for the new press.
The same colleague had offered to sell me two second-hand printing felts (3mm & 6mm) that were in excellent condition, for a very low price, and of course I jumped on the opportunity. Since he was giving a monoprint workshop in Bray (I had taken a charcoal & botanical ink making course with him a few months ago - I wrote about that here) I met him before his class last weekend and came home with the felts along with a few tips.
Prints on silk fibre sheets and contact monoprints were both important elements in my recent exhibitions, Memory Is My Homeland, and Lost Moments. I have previously written about the various Memory Is My Homeland prints here, here, and here. I have previously written about the various Lost Moments prints here, and here. I have actually written about the Lost prints as they were being created, so a simple search on this platform will give other posts. A search for “printmaking” will also reveal a number of bookbinding projects that included linoprints as well as a number of workshops I took in printmaking, such as carborundum and lithography. I have studied a variety of printmaking techniques since 1977 (including silkscreen, etching, drypoint, and woodblock, as well as lithography, linoblock, and carborundum) but it seems to me that I’ve only taken printmaking seriously in the past decade! That is, enough to first investigate, make, and use a pasta machine press (which I wrote about here and here), to borrow a press (for several years), take specific workshops, and finally to buy my own press.
As well as other projects, I have a carborundum plate that I would like to revisit from a workshop I did before covid (the prints were ruined in transport). So I will be starting this adventure soon…