I’ve been working on a linocut to illustrate a Summer Sonnet I worked on with Linda Cracknell and others about Dun Coillich (featured on my other blog, ruthatkinsontakingacloserlook.blogspot.com a couple of weeks ago). The plan is to print an edition on a proper press and sell it to help raise funds for the Highland Perthshire Communities Land Trust, who own and manage Dun Coillich.
I went to Quarto Press in Coupar Angus and John Easson gave me a hand printing them on his little proofing press. It took a while to get a feel for the press but once I did it was reasonably quick to print off over 100 copies of the border design. The border was printed in green and the landscape image I’d cut to illustrate the poem was to be in black. So once the border was done we had to line up the new lino block, ink up the rollers in black and start the whole printing process again. It took the best part of a day to print the two lino blocks in the two colours and then John will print the text, going through the whole process again for all 100 copies. And, even for a sonnet of fourteen lines, it still would take more type than John had available in the font I wanted to use so he would have to print the text in two goes to get the whole poem.
What we were doing was the way everything was printed until fairly recently. Colours were printed separately, type was set and someone had to make sure each piece of paper went through the press properly. It doesn’t take for ever but it does take time and a lot more effort and planning than pressing a button and it needs a bit of explanation for people to appreciate what they might be buying.
