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The Human Printer is a group that prints CMYK dot pattern photos by hand. Using markers they replicate the halftone effect of traditional CMYK printing.

(via Today and Tomorrow)

Thunder Chunky offers up a step-by-step look at the creation of a giclée print by Ben the Illustrator from initial sketch to final printed product.

Link: Ben the Illustrator’s Giclée Print.

I usually print out my dummies on fairly good presentation paper. This dummy was a bit different and since the double page spreads were so large I wanted larger paper to print them on. I have good photo paper, but don't want to use that for a dummy. That kind of paper is great and best reserved for a couple of finishes to show to a publisher. But I needed to use larger paper to get the whole spread on one sheet.

So I experimented with papers I had on hand and used a couple of types for printing the dummy. I had a ton of older rag based drawing paper and tried one color copy on that. WOW!

© Ginger Nielson 2009

illustration printed on older drawing paper with a lot of texture

The texture that resulted was something I absolutely loved. Compared to the expensive premium paper that I usually use for a dummy, this paper has such character. I have noticed in some of my favorite picture books that the paper has a wonderful "tooth" to it. This old drawing paper really is "toothy." But it is far to flimsy to use for a dummy.

© Ginger Nielson 2009

illustration printed on good quality matte photo paper

I don't know if it will show up on the blog, but here is the other of the two photos. The presentation paper from Epson is top of the line, but the colors and lines blend a bit too much. The rag paper is not great quality but I loved what it did with the color and the texture. With this print a lot of the texture that I had painted did not show up well. So my search continues.

Somewhere in between these two I will hopefully find the perfect paper for this dummy. And I will find the perfect paper for the finished pieces that I will want to show.

POD = PRINT ON DEMAND

This is a form of printing where a specific company utilizes digital printing machinery to actually print books one at a time, when the demand necessitates action. Will it give you a rash? Will it kill you? Will it even hurt you? No to all of those questions.

PRINT ON DEMAND is simply a term used for a type of printing and not a type of publishing. There are many extremely reputable publishing houses that utilize PRINT ON DEMAND printing for a number of reasons.

POD technology allows publishers who prefer to put there $$ into marketing as opposed to printing books that may or may not sell. It allows printers to save money on purchasing materials that might ultimately be wasted when a print run doesn’t sell as well as a publisher hopes. It allows the paper producers to destroy fewer trees to produce materials that are again wasted.

There seems to be some misunderstanding in the book industry that POD books are substandard. Booksellers and librarians have been mislead to believe that books printed one at a time are not as good as “real books.” Okay, here is a news flash; some books that are printed on demand are actually better quality than books printed by offset printing companies.

Let’s consider why I say that. Say you are a bookseller and you order one book from Publisher A who uses print on demand technology. You can be assured that the POD book you will receive will have been thoroughly reviewed by the quality control staff member and is of the highest possible quality.

Now, say you buy one books from Publisher B who uses an offset printer (or as some in the industry insist on calling them, a traditional printer.) These books were printed in a set of, say, 25,000. How many of those books do you think were specifically checked for quality control? Probably 10%. You increase your chances considerably of getting a book that might not be properly bound or glued, or perhaps a section of the book got crimped in the binding process. That is a book you cannot sell and must go through the hassle of returning for credit. What a pain.

I hope that this brief explanation will make you stop and think about the options available to you as a bookseller or librarian next time an author or publisher comes to you.

As readers, I hope you will ignore all the hoopla about POD books and allow yourself the pleasure of reading an author who just might become a favorite author. It truly is of no concern to you as a reader how the book is printed, as long as the author has written an incredibly entertaining book.

Are you looking for a new favorite author? I would highly recommend you give Echelon Press authors a try. I am not at all embarrassed to say that Echelon has published some of the best writers currently available in the market. You can get more information on our authors by visiting www.echelonpress.com/directory.htm

Print on Demand companies
Lightning Source (owned by Ingram Book Company-largest Book distributor in US)
BookSurge (Owned by Amazon.com-need I say more?)
Lulu

Happy Reading!
©Karen L. Syed

Our friends at Bountee, the fantastic print-on-demand t-shirt shop, have relaunched as MySoti. MySoti stands for “My Stuff On the Internet” and they’re expanding beyound just t-shirts. Currently they’re offering poster and canvas prints of your artwork, but expect other products soon.

Like Bountee, after uploading your art you can sell and share your creations, and you always retain the rights to your work.

To help celebrate we’re helping MySoti give away a prize pack including:

• 5 free shirts (of your choice)
• 1 free canvas print (any size)
• 1 free poster print (any size)

As it has started to snow here in Toronto, what could be a better theme for this contest than winter? To enter, simply create a product on MySoti with your winter-themed artwork or design and tag your entry ‘drawnblog’. It’s that simple. You have until January 31, 2008, after which myself and the crew at MySoti will pick our favourite entry as the winner. So get creating!

Amy Crehore sent this amazing find my way: beautiful art prints made with a 17 ton steamroller!

In honor of Passover we have invited Irvin Unger, founder and CEO of antiquarian booksellers Historicana and publisher of the new edition of the Szyk Haggadah (which you will learn all about below), to tell us why this Haggadah is different from all the others.

Spring means renewal and, for Jews, around the world, it means Passover—the story of freedom. Specifically it recounts the Jews’ escape from the tyranny of the Pharaohs, but Passover speaks symbolically to the ongoing human need to control one’s own life. Jews use a book called the Haggadah to recount this story at a Passover dinner gathering—or Seder. There have been more than 3,000 Haggadahs created over the last millennium, reflecting the wide variety of countries and cultures that are home to the Jewish Diaspora.

As a former pulpit Rabbi who became a rare book dealer, I became aware of the art of Arthur Szyk (1894 -1951) nearly 20 years ago. Since then, I have been fascinated with this talented artist who devoted his life and his art to fighting injustice—first for the Jews of Europe and then for peoples all over the world. I first came to know Arthur Szyk’s work through his Haggadah. The original 48 water color and gouache images were done in his unique style of medieval illumination with deep colors and great detail and intensity.

Szyk was a Polish-Jewish artist, trained in Paris, who devoted a decade to creating his own Passover Haggadah during the time that Hitler rose to power. It wasn’t possible to have the books printed in Germany, but Szyk was able to secure a London-based printer and a noted Jewish-English scholar, Cecil Roth, to write a commentary on the book. Szyk settled in London in 1937, where he supervised the printing of the Haggadah.

Once the printing was complete, the Szyk’s family immigrated to Canada and then to New York, where Szyk became the most well known anti-Fascist political cartoonist in America, and perhaps the world. Having lived through the Holocaust, freedom was not merely an academic theory for Szyk—freedom was real, and he devoted his life’s work to supporting it. He said of his immense skills, “Art is not my aim, it is my means.”

I have spent the past two years securing the finest book artisans and materials available in the world to create and publish a new edition of The Szyk Haggadah. For the first time since its original printing in 1940, a new edition has been created using digital photography of the original artwork and digital printing to ensure that there are no intermediaries between the art and the printed page. This new technology has produced results that are stunning—colors are deep and true, edges are crisp and images leap off the page.

To do justice to the digital printing, I secured a world-renowned book binder to hand bind and edge the bindings with gilt, used Nigerian goat skins for the bindings, and had the gift box custom made and covered in Japanese rayon cloth. I am also working with a director to create a full length of documentary of the making of the Haggadah.

During this time, I have also worked with Jewish scholars to create a companion volume to The Haggadah containing essays that shed new light and nuance on the art and life of Arthur Szyk. It has been an honor and a labor of love to create this limited edition of The Szyk Haggadah, which will be delivered to the first subscribers in time for this year’s Passover celebration.

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The Barack Obama campaign just launched a new online art store to support their movement.

The first item on sale is a new print by Shepard Fairey. John blogged about the first Obama print by Fairey over here.

Also of interest:
Barack Obama Sketch

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How I wish advertising were still this fun! Paint sold kind of like Wonderbread….

I moved to a new house recently. Or rather, it’s an old house, but new to me. Way, way up in the rafters of the garage, we found about 30 old point-of-purchase display ads from the 1930s and 40s, for Canadian brands and multinational ones like Eveready. All illustrated, some signed by Canadian artists. This is one of them. WoW! What are the chances of a forgotten hoard of graphic art being found by a graphic art historian??!

As it happens, I am co-editing a collection of articles for an upcoming issue of the Journal of Canadian Studies. That is, I HOPE to be editing it… it all depends on how many submissions for articles we get. I’m posting this here on the off-chance someone reading this has something to share on the topic.This will be the first time a survey of graphic art (not fine art printmaking! dammit!) history in Canada will be gathered together. Graphic design, illustration, comics… if it was in print, it’s probably good.

Since it is my research specialty, I’m hoping it will kick off a really nice little cohort of colleagues who will continue to share ideas and research. Feel free to email me for more details: [email protected].

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I love this. The periodic table as envisioned by ninety-six printmakers. Seen here, Ellen Shipley’s Titanium. There’s also a flickr group with preliminary and concept work, and a blog.

(Via Neatorama)

I’m in love with the artwork of Matte Stephens. Buy things from his Etsy shop. I will. Once I stop swooning.

Michael Wertz (previously) spent this weekend silkscreening 200 CD covers for the release of his friend Jonathan Segel’s new cd “Honey” and shares a short video of the process. He has an enviable setup at home for big jobs like this.

Anyone living in or around Memphis should stop by delta axis @ Marshall Arts this evening at 6pm for the opening of the Agents of Timbre show. Curated by Sasha Barr (previously featured here) and John Weeden, the show will feature the personal work of many of the premiere gig poster artists working today. Visit the official Agents of Timbre website to see more samples of featured work and visit the delta axis website for directions to the gallery.

One of my favourite indie comix artists, Shannon Gerard, teaches book arts at the Ontario College of Art and Design. Her students have a big show and party of their work tonight. You can have a sneak peek here.

I while back, someone showed me some great little books, made by artists at Islands Fold, a small publisher-slash-artists’-retreat on Pender Island, just off the coast of Vancouver:

Islands Fold is an independant publisher and artist residency created by Angela Conley and Luke Ramsey. It’s about inviting artists into our home, supporting creative identity, collaborating, promoting health and well being and producing unique art. Established on Pender Island B.C, Canada, the residency is offered at no charge to the artists. It is sustained through public support by purchasing the books and zines made by Islands Fold.

Above is a print made by Ryan Thompson while at Islands Fold.

All those artists who try and try again to get their work noticed and printed over at other t-shirt shops can finally see if their designs are saleable at Bountee, a new online web 2.0 social-thing-a-ma-doodad for t-shirt artists. The site’s barely a week old, so the current batch of designs is neither extensive nor mind-blowing, but I guess that’s where you come in. Sign up, design some shirts, and get selling.

It’s pretty Web 2.0 (heck, it comes complete with a Beta disclaimer in the logo, tags, and RSS feeds!), but that’s not necessarily a bad thing — I took a stab at creating a shirt design and it was easy as pie and looked pretty slick.

I haven’t seen any printed samples, but I think this could be big if only because they seem to get user experience. Once the masses get involved, though, it’s hard to say how easy it will be to find the good stuff amidst all the inevitable crappy designs that will surely make up for a lot of the site’s content. All the tagging and star-ratings in the world mightn’t be able to do that. I’d like to eventually see at least some sort of quality control in the form of editor’s picks or something, otherwise I doubt I’d ever just browse the site to shop.

And although you only earn the mark-up above each shirt’s initial $17, making it difficult to charge a fair price and make more than 10-20% of each sale, the terms and conditions seem artist-friendly, with no sneaky wording and no attempts to claim ownership of your work. I have to get behind any contract that contains the phrase “sit on it!”

The lovely and talented (and previously blogged) Michael Wertz has opened his online shop. His wildly bright and exciting illustrations are offered as Goccos and screen prints, ranging in price from $40 to $16. He’s got t-shirts, mugs, and caps for sale too. And a blog, but it’s not for sale.

If you have some time to spare looking through decent scans of wicked old gig posters, I highly recommend a trip to Wolfgang’s Vault. Loads of funky, tripped out inspiration. From the site…

“Wolfgang’s Vault owns one of the world’s largest collections of original concert posters from the legendary BG, BGP and rare Fillmore East series. The total number of concert posters in the Vault goes far beyond these works of art however, featuring hundreds of rock posters, political posters, sports posters, comedy posters and others that were previously unavailable to the general public.”