This week I went with typographic designer, Lisa Kirkham and her two children Hannah and Jan, to Lavenham Press to watch the start of the print of The Little White Sprite. Here's a clip of pages from my book rattling through the great Heidelberg machine at 15,000 sheets an hour: Heidelberg press printing Little White Sprite
It seemed amazing that all those watercolours I'd mixed together on my palette when I did the illustrations - yellow ocres, raw umbers, rose madders, red iron oxides, cobalt violets, veridians and more, were reproduced from these four simple colour plates, black, cyan, magenta and yellow.
In minutes there was a great pile of Little White Sprite sheets all printed on one side, waiting to dry before being printed on the other side.
Then we saw the the folding machine, the gluing machine, the cover laminating machine,
and the wonderful stiching machine. It could have been a factory owned by Willy Wonker.
Afterwards we went to the Swan Inn for drinks and snacks before returning home with the same number of children we'd started out with.
Pictures thanks to Jan.
What a fascinating privilege to actually see your book being printed!
ReplyDeleteI called by to wish you the very best of luck with your new publishing venture.
Three cheers for independants who want to publish books with individuality :o)
Thank you June. Lavenham Press was a joy to visit. The alternative would have been a trip to China to check up on the print job!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete