Letterpress 3 class

Okay, yes, I know I've said my follow classmates make or break a class for me. Today simply and completely hammered home the point for me.

Today I went to the last of the three class progression that is required before I can rent time on the San Francisco Center for the Book's Vandercook letterpress proofing printers. The last Letterpress class I had was good, with the photopolymer class not so hot. I'm very glad I had taken the photopolymer class, if only to learn that I'd rather have someone else make my plates since doing so is less expensive, less time consuming and less error prone. If I hadn't taken the class, I wouldn't have known this, so lesson learned.

So, today's class was remarkably and happily hands off from Katherine, the instructor. She gaves us the text of the poem, and the framework of the project we were working on today, but didn't provide much more guidance than that. She showed us where supplies were, and guided us along the general steps, but (appropriately) did little else. This is the last class we take before heading out on our own on the communal printers - if we didn't know how to start the press, mix colors, or clean the printers, we had no right to rent time on the printers. Worse, we risked damaging the printers, so a hands-off approach was pretty much required.

For our book, I set the text for the "about us" page. I spent a good half hour trying to find the dingbats I had imagined when I mentally designed the page, so was still setting text when everyone else was off setting up pages for printing. I did print the background patterns for most of pages, running the printer on pages with translucent white on the pattern. I did manage to share somewhat, but not as much as I could have.

The books turned out nicely. I ended up with books numbered 2, 3, 4 and 6, bartering away my 2 for the book numbered 47. Much nicer.

My classmates were awesome. Once again Ann was in the class. We chatted throughout the day. I'm glad I met her. I hope to see her again.

Who was NOT in my class, I'm happy to say, was the guy who would not shut up in my photopolyer plate making class. I mention this only because he was at the Center today, taking a book binding class. I saw him around class walking back in from lunch. I chose not to acknowledge that I recognized him, still being annoyed with him for not shutting the hell up when I was listening to the last teacher.

Now that I'm trained, it's time to make the May party invites!

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