Summer felt like the longest season so far this year, but my letterpress classes felt short. I had two different batches of students over the last 10 weeks who were all exceptional. I'm probably biased, but I think the people that come through my class are some of the best that Richmond has to offer. Each one is creative, respectful and eager to learn.

To kick off the first of the ten weeks, we printed another round of exquisite corpse. Love the platypus at the end wrapping it up.

In my first class I had another fellow calligrapher who I helped create cuts from her writing to print. She also made two of my favorite projects from class. One of them was this Johnny Cash quote. I've been falling back in love with printing on brown paper recently.

Another one she did was a quote from Leslie Knope. I've had other students print from Parks & Rec before and it always makes me smile. I think everyone that does much be a kindred spirit.

I had a student in my class that needed to print a project for a local art exhibit. I worked with him and another printmaker to make a set of posters for it. These came out great and were such a quick and fun use of wood type.

My favorite from the set though has to be this one. They were all so playful and worked great as a set together.

Of course, not all my students used wood. This metal type was gorgeous and the ornament played so nicely off the words.

My second class was SIX weeks long so I had way more students and time with them. I like the longer classes better but it's hard to squeeze in two long ones per session. Here is the sentence that this group made on the first week of class.

I had THREE teachers in my second section so they were extra informed and attentive. One of them taught at VCU and brought in this amazing Printers Guide for me to see. I was so thankful he shared his collection of vintage printing books and papers with us.

When I first read the following type, I thought it said CARP and I died laughing. I really wanted her to print one for me that way just because I was so far off what it actually said.

This professor went to print one of his favorite poems. I fear the complicated typesetting may have ruined it for him, but I thought the results were glorious. He did two passes of the machine to get the green next to the brown. And the cut he found couldn't have been more perfect for the words.