Our Head Marbler couldn't believe her luck this weekend; the opportunity to attend a course taught by Carolyn Trant, of Parvenu Press, on print making. We normally keep the HM away from too much creative work, but I was laid low with flu and this an seemed innocuous chance to give her an incentive in these dark days of Credit Crunch.
There were only 2 beginners on the course; but the HM was rather thrown when Carolyn asked what she planned to do. The honest answer would have been "nothing", but gallantly she pointed to a piece of plywood and gasped "a poster".
Kindly, if unwisely, Carolyn passed her a chisel, explained which was the business end, blanched when she placed her hand on the table in front of the blade, and left her to it for a moment or two. Long enough for the HM to get stuck in. And the chisel. Six hours later she'd done: the words "Libre Livre" gouged out of the ply, backwards..ish.
Carolyn said it looked fine, but "odd" somehow.
The HM inked up the ply, a natty green with an orange stripe along the middle, applied the paper and put it under the press. "Erbil Ervil". No two ways about it, the letters clear and bold, the words reversed. Irretrievably reversed.
The HM is hereby confined to marbling duty for some time to come.
Sunday, 25 January 2009
Friday, 23 January 2009
Erratum
A few days ago in the Libre Livre Gallery I described the landscape photographer James Ravilious as "grandson" of the artist Eric Ravilious. An eager reader has pointed out that he was in fact the son of Eric. My mistake. Apologies folks.
Sunday, 18 January 2009
A Testimonial
We recently received the following customer testimonial:
"I thought that you would like to be the recipient of the first letter written on my new writing paper. I'm very grateful to you for preparing it for me, and look forward to writing more letters with it..." Father Paul Arnold.
Libre Livre is pleased to prepare personal stationery for our discerning customers. We offer a wide range of fonts and inks - for those who want to stand apart from the herd. See our website for more details: Libre Livre
"I thought that you would like to be the recipient of the first letter written on my new writing paper. I'm very grateful to you for preparing it for me, and look forward to writing more letters with it..." Father Paul Arnold.
Libre Livre is pleased to prepare personal stationery for our discerning customers. We offer a wide range of fonts and inks - for those who want to stand apart from the herd. See our website for more details: Libre Livre
Friday, 16 January 2009
Russia Leather
New Year, New Stock, the mantra at Libre Livre. We recently bought some new skins, mainly brown and red to build up our stock, but try as we might we could manage to justify buying what we really hankered after, Russia leather.
For those who have not come across Russia leather before, it is leather tanned with vegetable tannins taken from birch bark. The process takes months. In my personal opinion, the finest Russia leather is reindeer skin, although cow, horse and goat have all been tanned in this way. The leather has a rich brown colour that has been described as "old walnut", certainly the oils in the skins have rendered them remarkably long lasting. Used for a variety of purposes as well as bookbinding, Russia leather can be identified by light diagonal cross hatched scores. The only trouble is this wonderful material is no longer made.
In 1973 a wreck of a ship, the Metta Catharina, sailing from St Petersburg to Genoa around 200 years before was discovered off the cost of Plymouth Sound. Its cargo, bundles of hides, was almost entirely undamaged and skins can still occasionally be bought, though they're not cheap mind you.
For those who have not come across Russia leather before, it is leather tanned with vegetable tannins taken from birch bark. The process takes months. In my personal opinion, the finest Russia leather is reindeer skin, although cow, horse and goat have all been tanned in this way. The leather has a rich brown colour that has been described as "old walnut", certainly the oils in the skins have rendered them remarkably long lasting. Used for a variety of purposes as well as bookbinding, Russia leather can be identified by light diagonal cross hatched scores. The only trouble is this wonderful material is no longer made.
In 1973 a wreck of a ship, the Metta Catharina, sailing from St Petersburg to Genoa around 200 years before was discovered off the cost of Plymouth Sound. Its cargo, bundles of hides, was almost entirely undamaged and skins can still occasionally be bought, though they're not cheap mind you.
Monday, 12 January 2009
New Feature in the Libre Livre Gallery
Our accompanying blog, Libre Livre Gallery was set up to showcase some of the photos taken by the team at work, and at play. We use our own photos in our website, and for those interested in using us to design and build their sites we thought it might be helpful to see a few more of our efforts. Simply that.
Of late we have been deluged with requests for information about the places included in the gallery; so, from today by popular demand each picture will have alongside it a short note explaining where it was taken and what, if any, relevance the picture has to the world of books, binding and printing. We hope this will make the gallery more interesting to our customers past, present and future.
Of late we have been deluged with requests for information about the places included in the gallery; so, from today by popular demand each picture will have alongside it a short note explaining where it was taken and what, if any, relevance the picture has to the world of books, binding and printing. We hope this will make the gallery more interesting to our customers past, present and future.
Now is the winter
Snow may not be lying deep and crisp and even along Castle Ditch Lane, but the Libre Livre workshop is perishing cold these days. Night time temperatures well below zero make the morning shift a tough one, and the afternoon not much better.
Everybody seems to be going down with flu, and we would like to say a particular "thank you" to she who will remain nameless, who passed it on to us free, gratis and for nothing.
Everybody seems to be going down with flu, and we would like to say a particular "thank you" to she who will remain nameless, who passed it on to us free, gratis and for nothing.
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
On second thoughts
Some time ago I was working for a small company whose staff were less keen on administration than action; or not. The company manager, quite rightly, insisted on introducing a few basic reports, each of which became less and less meaningful as the staff adapted the format he had specified to make life easier for them. Eventually, driven to distraction, he told them not to give him any more meaningless schedules - since when he has received....nothing.
Monday, 5 January 2009
A thought for the New Year
Over the Christmas holiday I chanced into a lady who set me thinking about work ethics, New Year resolutions and such like. Somebody mentioned to her that they had trouble getting a seat on the train into work each day "No seat? " she inquired sweetly, "No problem... Go in earlier"
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