Growlygracepress's Blog

One day its going to be Bewicks the next its going to be Crawhalls and the day after it’s going to be little dog prints.

As you can see this is a guillotine, it’s old and I have a love hate thing going on with it.
Previously I would take the blade to the saw doctors to get sharpened but it was a pain to do. They were used to working with printers and and not batty women coming off the street. I was never that happy with the sharpening. Then the blade got extended, reground and sharpened at the engineers but I had problems with the angle it would cut book bloc and it still had nicks.

I like coloured edges on a book so I can’t use the guillotine if the nicks on the blade leave groves. So for years I used a plough. I would use the guillotine for chopping up papers and board, but when it comes to trimming a book I like a plough it leaves a beautiful clean edge and I like the rhythm of working with it.

But the goldielock book was cut on the guillotine, must have been cut just after the blade had been sharpen and I think if I am going to recreate the book then I had better do the same with the tools around me.

I found a new nut for the screw for my old press and Malcolm the mechanic welded it to the plate, I had lost the bolts that had screwed the press to the end of the bench So on a Saturday morning a few weeks back I announced that action would be done this very day!
Much to the husbands amusement. I am a sloth.

I went on the internet and looked for a solution this service came up
http://www.sharpknives.co.uk/ it’s a great site I was able to specify exactly what I wanted and press pay! I parcelled up my blade took it to the post office and then went on to the fixings shop and got the threaded bar to secure the press to the bench.

I got the blade back on the Tuesday talk about fast service.

It’s the best sharpening this blade has ever had all the nicks have gone, it cuts books like butter and I would have no problem in using it to cut work for a client.

So if you are looking for knife sharpening go with this company I can’t recommend them enough.

I had that lovely warm feeling you get when you have been putting off something because of sheer dread of the actual frustration you will experience, and it couldn’t have been better for me.

Which make a change. I have a idea for a book that I am going to bind, I think I have a commission to work on, just been paid for the last one, I havent made countless attempts at the goldielock book for at least a week. So it’s all good.

This is one of the little dog prints I am was talking about earlier.
Along with swaths of Gore tex I am accompanied most of the time by Border Collie named Grace who is exceptionally growly and is given to vocalising penetrating insights. I had forgotten that I had the blocks made with her babble. I was never happy about the blocks made from the photos, they could have been better. I think when I am in the money again I’ll get Boxcar have a shot at them.

After the what I call my ‘defenestration from the craft shop’ I was left with a number of nice books that I was hoping the craft shop would sell, they were not full on, nice enough chaps, they had lovely hand painted end papers. Anyway I killed them all and ripped them apart, I liberated the paper for printing and writing, I don’t know what I did to the boards and leather. It was an orgy of destruction, the guillotine was massively involved, I cut through all their spines.

There is something quite soothing and business like in destroying what you make. It wasn’t personal.
There is a sad corner in the craft shop where sits a pile of items that ‘failed’ they have been reduced and they mock the shop. Nobody wants them they remind every one of failure the maker, the shop buyers and the customers who don’t want them at any price. It really is a big pile of suck.
At least I didn’t end up there.

One of the things that is going to happen with the printing is I am going to deal decisively with the thrill of the novelty. I get an idea and I do it once and then I stick it in a drawer and walk away.

Or I might just be a lazy cow and a bit too contemptuous of my own work. Whatever. I am going to revisit the ideas I hand in printing and actually actually finish them, not going to bother with the “editioning” bollocks, just ink, good paper and blocks.

Repeated the mistake multiple times.

This is what I call the Goldilocks book.

It’s just right.

These are the various attempts to make it.

and

and currently on my bench

this was from an attempt a few years back that I was about to put in to the bin but it was ‘saved’ by an artist and she wants them.

This is why I am adopting a scientific method. Because I get it wrong time and time again.

This is the first of the proposed prints I am going to do over the course of the week and I am going to leave them at the Lit and phil whether they want me to or not!
This is a print of one of the Bewick birds but I added a block of colour to ginger it up.

It’s a bit of a mess, in my infinite wisdom I am getting back in to printing. Last year I gradually came to the conclusion that not only was a bad printer but the things that I wanted to print were silly and amusing only to me. Childish even.
But I have recovered my sense of humour and am back with a vengeance. I am going to print my silly stuff : what Grace (a border collie of this parish) would say if she could talk. Yeah I know what you are thinking but it makes me grin. I also discovered when I was pulling out drawers looking for blocks that I had established a fantastic collection of blocks. A serious amount of blocks from Joseph Crawhall and Thomas Bewick illustrations, I mean a lot.
I think what I will do print up various designs and leave them in places for people to take. Makes me laugh.