Just finished: this lovely custom summer skirt in purple gingham, printed with a repeat of our doily woodblock in black ink, with a softly gathered waist, full lining, and generous inseam pockets. This is similar to the skirts we sell in our shop, with a bit of added length as requested by our client. We’re pretty delighted with the finished product!
We’re happy to produce a one of a kind item for you as well! You can choose from the fabrics in our studio and design your own custom piece by telling us exactly how you want it printed, and we can show you our collection of fabrics we’ve printed in the past to give you ideas. We prefer to stick to simple garments like this gathered skirt, our shirred sundresses, and easy to wear a-line tanks and tunics, in order to show off our printed fabrics at their best. But we’re also working on producing some of our fabrics for sale if you’d prefer to sew your own piece or take it to a tailor to have something fabulous made for you. Just drop in any time to look at fabric and discuss options!
Today was a sewing day in the studio, putting the shirring into some block printed sundresses. We’ll have a bunch of these dresses, all in one of a kind fabrics hand printed in our studio, ready to debut during Walkerville Art Walk & Rock weekend.
Today in the studio: I just finished screenprinting these broadsides, featuring Surprise Party In The Snow characters discussing the impending arrival of one of Windsor and Essex County’s grossest pests: the dreaded fish fly. I’ve never seen them get quite this bad myself, but I’ve heard stories from my mother-in-law’s childhood of Leamington shopkeepers clearing the carcasses off the sidewalks with a shovel when a broom just couldn’t handle the quantity. Yuck, right? But it’s just part of Essex County life, and a sign of a healthy lake.
So grit your teeth, ignore the crunching under your shoes, and get the broadside! These puppies are printed on lovely French paper in your choice of white, yellow, or blue, and measure 9×12 inches (paper size) to fit into a standard frame.
We had a productive private instruction session in the studio today. A student came in and prepped her artwork, exposed a screen, and made about 30 prints in just two hours!
Here are the gorgeous fabrics created by our most recent students. They started with a base layer of printing from large wood blocks chosen from our woodblock library, then created their own designs by hand stamping smaller linoleum blocks and letterpress type and ornaments.
It’s fascinating to see the vast difference between these pieces and the ones made by the previous group who took this class, using the same blocks and fabrics. It gets me so excited about the possibilities for what people can accomplish in this class!
Here are some shots of tonight’s full pieces of finished fabrics:
Today I made some calendar pages for the studio wall, to better keep track of scheduling for classes and private instruction sessions. This is a handmade prototype version of a line of letterpress and screenprinted wall calendars we’ll be making for 2016!
Summer is here! And Walkerville will be hopping this weekend, with Art in the Park, the opening of the new City Market, and loads of yard sales. Here at Levigator Press, we have to work all weekend, but we’re in the mood to party!
Nicole of Mercantile 519 will be joining us for sidewalk sale madness, bringing you hot summer specials on letterpress cards, jewellery, and more! We’ll also be playing some cornhole, so come on over and loosen up your throwing arm.
Inside the studio we’ll be printing up a storm, with impromptu demos in screenprint, letterpress, and block printing all weekend long. And because we had so much fun last time we did it, you can bring a t-shirt in between 2 and 5 on Saturday to have it printed with an image of your choice from our selection of hand carved wood and lino blocks. All you have to do is show up and be awesome!
My friend Monica came into the studio yesterday to keep me company on a rainy day while I completed a grant application. I gave her a quick lesson in trace monotype printmaking, set her up with paper and an inked slab, and she made me this wonderful print for the studio:
Those bound pockets on the shirt on the right had me swooning.
I’m going to frame it and use it to start a little collection of gifted artwork on the back wall of the studio overtop of the flat files and stereo. Kind of like that bulletin board full of one dollar bills you see in restaurants and variety stores!
Just put the finishing touches on these rad new dinosaur notebooks, featuring linoblock portraits of a few toy dinos from our collection:
We’ve also got a new line of greeting cards in the shop featuring these fearsome dudes. I’ve cut a second block to add some colour and will be printing multicolour dinos this week. Thinking about printing them on some t-shirts too!
Today we had Carly from Completely Carly in the studio for a private instruction session in screenprinting. She learned how to prepare artwork and expose a screen, and printed up some fabrics for notebook covers and these super cute baby onesies she makes and sells:
You can check out Carly’s work at upcoming Walkerville Night Markets (last Friday of every month), as well as the City Market Art Market on the first weekend in June.
Private instruction sessions are a great way to learn a process when you have a specific project in mind, and can be booked for during or outside shop hours, any time there isn’t a class running. Just give us a call to discuss planning a session for your own special print, publishing, or bookbinding project!
