Our new Holiday Coasters! The design is non other than the Swedish "Dala Hesten", or "Dala Horse". This design was originally created by Anna Coleman for her own personal Christmas Cards (see last installment), but we couldn't resist setting up a holly border from our foundry metal type collection, surround the horse with it, and printing it on 2.0 mm thick square coaster stock. We think it turned out nicely.
Each card is individually hand fed twice, one for each colour. Since this is a hard surface pulp stock, special measures had to be taken in order to effectively print upon it, leaving a suitable impression and deboss, without cracking the board. The solution was to expose each card to steam before impression. Each card had to be held over rising steam, which provided just enough dampness to create a nice transfer of ink from the metal die - to the coaster. No machine does this. It must be done by hand, under a careful and watchful eye.
This is a bit of a close-up, showing the cast holly border with corner bells. If you are reading about Anna's Dala Horse design for the first time, I go into it in greater detail on my last posting on this blog, covering Anna's Christmas Card design.
These coasters will be sold in sets of ten from our Etsy Shop. If you have not visited our shop, stop on by. We've only just started Etsy, so we have only our Christmas Card and Dala Horse Coaster set available to date. Take advantage of direct on-line purchasing through our on-line store!
I would like to point out that the Dala Horse is not simply a "Christmas" Horse! The Dala Horse is a year-round display of Swedish Folk Art. The coasters you see are displayed in a Christmas Seasonal display, but they can be used the whole winter season long. They are not necessarily a Christmas design, rather, what I might call a "winter" design, or an ethnic Swedish design.
Well, that's what is new here at G. Johanson, Letterpress. Best of Providence in all your Christmas Endeavors!
-gary
No comments:
Post a Comment