Good Morning - more work on lino prints

In the past few weeks I have been making some headway on my small book project Good Morning/How Are You? As I mentioned in a previous post, this will be a series of very limited edition (10 each) multilingual handmade books. The concept is existential with images to be reflections of comfort, companionship and renewal.

The first three books in the series will be in English, Irish and Spanish. I had to redo one of the Irish lino blocks because I had miss-spelled the Irish for Good Morning - i.e., Maidin Mhaigh is correct.

I was happy with the new test print.

With my trusty bone folder, I scored the margins for all the pages that the lino block images/texts will be printed on. This took awhile, as the Strathmore paper is quite heavy.

I also set up a more careful registration system - I had just been eyeballing it on the test prints.

Printing without a press has its own satisfactions.

Conas atá tú? means "how are you?" in Irish.  

One of the images for the books is two mugs.

A teapot is the ultimate symbol of comfort for me.

I had a good day of printing today! Here some prints are drying on the living room floor.

Good Morning. How are you?

I've started work on a small, hand-made book project. Very simply, the books will be less than 10 pages , five of these pages being lino prints (two text, 3 images) and each book series in an edition of 10. Each series will be in a different language - starting with English, Irish and Spanish. The first & last prints in the book will be simple texts "Good Morning" and "How Are You?" The three other prints, separating the texts, will be simple images - a teapot, two mugs, a boiled egg. Existential breakfast. Here goes. Tools for printing.

Trusty wooden spoon technique rubbing the print into being.

The inked lino blocks after a series of test prints.

Lino-blocks and test prints.

I have decided the final books will be printed on heavy Strathmore paper and the cover will be corrugated cardboard. I will bind them simply, using the Japanese stab-binding technique, with a different coloured cotton thread for each language edition. Here are the test prints for the Strathmore paper. I have since been informed by trusty, Gaelgor (Irish-speaking) sources that I made spelling errors in the Irish text for "Good Morning" (should be "Maidgin Mhaigh") so I am cutting a new lino block today. But here are the Strathmore paper test prints drying.