The plates for the calendar just arrived! Here's the proof for the text and below is a photopolymer plate, not yet cut up. I suppose I'm giving a little bit of what's to come away by showing you this, but it won't be the first time I've done it and it won't be the last. I just get so excited about new projects!
There was a little hiccup with the paper order for the calendars, but everything is in line now and I should be able to get started with the printing on Friday. I think I'll begin with the blind stamp that goes on each and every calendar page and then move on to printing all the text in black ink. That's 1200+ pieces of paper run through two times each for the main body of the calendar – and then I'll get to do the ink-mixing and artwork printing. And, really, what I'll end up doing is printing quite a few extras to start out with, to leave room for inevitable imperfections and mis-prints along the way. I've had more than one fellow-printer tell me I'm crazy for doing this, but I'm raring to go. Though time will tell – this may be the first and last calendar I print – only I don't think this will really be the case...
Speaking of imperfections and mis-prints, here's a little {perhaps slightly embarrasing} insight into the way I work. The thing is, if you couldn't tell already, I'm really picky. The nice way to put it is that I am 'detail-oriented' and there are much less-nice-more-crass ways to put it, too. I don't mind the subtle differences that come from hand-feeding the paper, hand-cranking the press, hand-mixing inks. I like those, a lot. What I can't stand are the ones that come from bad printing or rushed work. I've been known to {more than once!} print an entire stack of work and then re-do it at my own expense of time and material. The thing that kills me is that I usually spot the bad, bad seed of it all right away, just three or four or five prints in to the stack. But then {more than once!} I've just kept going, just told myself that I'm the only one that will notice ... only to go back in the end and do it the right way, after agonizing over it, obsessing over it, pestering my husband about it mercilessly. And the thing is, I might really be the only one who would ever notice, but when I see the same little tiny speck of something not right again and again, print after print – well, I can't take it. So, here's to me hoping I have finally learned my lesson – which is to spend the time at the start {rather than after a day of having a nagging feeling about it} to get everything just-so – and I'll be happier for it.
2 comments:
Yay! You can start printing. Crazy. Detail-oriented. Perfectionist... whatever. I can relate and totally hear you. I'm looking forward to seeing much much more!
i understand the feeling.. my sister is more of a perfectionist than i am with art. i suppose i only care about it when i am trying to achieve a clean image. but if i'm just making a collage art card or doing a fuzzy type acrylic painting, it doesn't bother me as much about the imperfection. they actually enhance it. but my sister has a really hard time letting go and will restart her watercolor pictures each time there's a tiny flaw that only she can see. i'll only see it after she has pointed it out to me. she's only 18, but at 16, a gentleman wanting to write and publish a japanese manga mistaken my sister for an adult and wanted her to do the illustration! that was such a compliment to her. and i always tell her that no one else will know your imperfections and half the time, they enhance your work because it adds a human touch to it. if humans aren't perfect, why should the work that they make be perfect then?
so now i'm telling you. most likely no one else will notice. and if you arent sure, try selling the items and see how it goes. i'll bet it gets snatched up without a moment's thought. :)
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