Letterpress Student Work: Fall 2019

My fall class this year was so much fun! I had a full group of six students which made it a packed room, but also full of conversation, inspiration and collaboration. I really enjoyed seeing the different scale of projects that came out of this class.

One of my students printed mostly on tags. Each week she came in with a stack of blank tags she ordered online and printed them with simple text. At the end of the class she would take them home and decorate them using stamps and inks. For halloween, she brought me a bag of candy corn with her tag on it! How adorable is this‽

Halloween was also an inspiration to other students. These black on black minimal typography cards came out great. It was totally my style and something I could see myself printing.

The same student was also a fan of 30 Rock, as am I. These spooky scary cards cracked me up. I love the lock up and how much time was dedicated to a hilarious segment of a show.

The same student also pulled out one epic 30 Rock Moment with Jack Donaghy's “There, there” cards. It’s the ultimate passive aggressive business slight.

The ombre on these didn’t show up great in pictures but it printed beautifully. She was also overly ambitious with how she laid out the stars and dots. This was a big challenge I helped her solve.

The plan for these cards was to use them to stamp on the paw print of dogs that local inmates were working with taking care of! Really creative use of class time.

Locking up this cut was anything but “easy peasy.” I’ve printed my own circle letterpress image before so I knew the challenge this student was about to undertake. She worked through it flawlessly and I helped her space things out to print it with the split fountain.

The same day, we used the split fountain on these dancing posters!

One student wanted to test out the legos we had for some “snow” themed holiday cards. I love that half the dots were little eyeballs that got coated in ink.

Here is a small collection of quick lock ups and prints from the final weeks of class. The snoopy was something I test printed to show them what the cut looked like.

This card just brought instant joy to the entire class. I already love puns and jokes so was pleasantly amused watching her typeset this. Everyone else got the surprise once she finished printing.

The last piece I am sharing has a mistake on it! She began printing and didn’t realize till she was collecting all her cards up that something was wrong. I told her it made the card all the better. Also, I have totally been there with errors.