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Once all the painting had been completed on
The Lost Colours of the Cyclades
there was still some paint left over from the twenty representative colours that
John Sutcliffe chose for the book. I also had a small number of full sheets of a
heavy Zerkall paper, so big I could only just get them on our thirty-inch proof
press. Time to pair them up. Here's a thumb-nail of the result - click on it to
see a slightly larger version (which still doesn't do it justice!).
The second poster was prompted by the
Oxford Guild of Printers'
wayzgoose held last month. When Mark Arman closed his Workshop Press I acquired
some of his type, in particular his Perpetua and in particular the large sizes -
36pt, 48pt, 60pt, and 72pt - which complemented founts of the body sizes that I
had bought from Stephenson Blake before they closed. Having bought from Mark his
poster displaying Perpetua (at an early Oxford Fine Press Book Fair) I thought I
would do one myself. Mine shows many but not all of the sizes I hold. Again you
can click on the image below to see a larger version.
Thanks to the good
offices of John Purcell, from whom we
buy much of the paper for our books, we joined a group that visited
St Cuthberts paper mill near Wells
in Somerset. We were given a terrific day by staff and management, in
particular with the chance to watch the entire process from bulk cotton fibre
going into the giant macerator, down the length of the cylinder mould machine,
to the finished roll of paper at the end. We brought away some sheets of their
Somerset Velvet Buff which we added to a small stock we already had here - each
poster is printed on a half sheet.
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