Linocuts, or Hey! I've Done Printing Before!

I am going to change gears here a little bit, because I am sort of tired of talking about my books (sorry, books). 

While reading about woodcuts in our book, I thought, "hey! I've done this before!" (Sort of.) When I was in 8th grade, my Talented and Gifted class went to the Huntington Museum of Art for some kind of nature-y artsy day. Aside from going in the Conservatory and taking a hike and throwing bowls, we made linocuts of leaves, which was the second most fun thing I did that day (throwing bowls being the first). 

Sadly, I do not have pictures of the process, but I remember what we did very well, and I will use images from Google to supplement my recollection.

First, we were given blocks of linoleum and a v-shaped gouge tool to create the design. We were provided with several leaves for inspiration. 

Linoleum block

Gouge and blades

Examples of the marks different blades create. I think I used a blade similar to #3 here to create 

Example of print (top) and linocut block (bottom)

Next, we used a brayer to spread some ink on a pane of glass, and then used the inked brayer to coat the linoleum block. The inked block was then put through a press to transfer the image to a piece of paper. I did not get to keep my block, but I did get to keep the print.

Brayer

Coating the brayer with ink

Inking the linoleum block

A press similar to the one used to create my print

8th grade me = bad artist. Bear in mind that this was one take, and the first time I'd ever done this. I was mostly trying to not gouge a hole in my finger. Don't ask me what I was thinking with the squiggly lines around the leaf.

Check out a detailed account (with pictures) of how linocuts are made here.

Paper

Paper is an essential part of any physical book. Papermaking did not spread to Europe until the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The fine paper used to make books was originally made from bleached linen rags. In the early 1800s, papermaking machines were invented. In the 1850s, it was common for paper to be made from wood pulp, though paper was still being made from rags. 

As I do not possess a physical copy of the first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, I had to guess at what kind of paper was used to make the book. In the pictures I have of a first edition copy, the pages appear to be fairly yellowed. This is characteristic of a wood pulp paper. Wood pulp papers have a high lignin content, which contributes to high acidity, which causes yellowing of the paper and deterioration.

For the two physical copies I have, I looked at the copyright pages to see if they would yield any information about the type of paper used in the book. I had no luck with the Garcia-illustrated book, but the Penguin Classics edition had a note that it was made from Forest Stewardship Council certified paper.

The paper in my Penguin Classics edition is very smooth and off-white. It does not have the same kind of rough texture that seems standard for paper used in five-dollar paperback books. That cheap kind of paper reminds me of the manila paper my high school art teachers made us use for rough sketches. I am guessing that the paper used for this book is a higher quality paper. I think that the fact that the paper is not bright white adds character to the paper, and makes the book seem older than it really is. 

The paper used in my Camille Rose Garcia-illustrated has a bit of texture to it, but it is glossy. It proved difficult to photograph, as it kept reflecting light. You can also see the letters on the page shining if you hold the book at an angle. I learned in class that glossy paper creates brighter colors. I think the glossy paper was used to really highlight Garcia’s illustrations. Even though the illustrations have a dark quality to them, all the colors are extremely vivid.

What is the use of a book without pictures?

I love art, so naturally I love illustrations in books. One of the things I hated the most when I was younger and started reading novels was the lack of illustration in most of the books I had to read. Sure, it’s fun to imagine scenes and characters on your own, but it’s great to be able to look at pictures of what you’re reading, even if the book contains just a few illustrations. 

The first edition Alice and the Penguin Classics edition have the same illustrations by John Tenniel. Tenniel created forty-two illustrations for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Carroll gave Tenniel extremely precise instructions on how the illustrations should look. He even provided Tenniel with photographs. It is thought that Alice may be based off of Mary Hilton Badcock.

Tenniel created the illustrations by making preliminary sketches, and then adding ink and Chinese white to simulate wood engraver’s lines. He used tracing paper to transfer the designs to woodblocks. The woodblocks for the Alice illustrations were engraved by the Brothers Dalziel, the premier woodblock-engravers of Victorian England. Electrotype plates were made from the woodblock engravings, and those plates were used as the masters to print the illustrations in the books. The original plates were found in a bank vault in 1981. They are now in the British Library.

Alice meets the caterpillar. In the bottom left corner, you can see both Tenniel's initials and "DALZIEL" for the engravers.

Tenniel's Tea Party. 

Alice and the cards

Camille Rose Garcia created the illustrations in my other Alice book. Her goal with the illustrations was to reinterpret the iconic story that is Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. She started with multiple pencil sketches, and picked the best ideas from all the sketches. The illustrations are done with watercolors and acrylics. Her illustrations are inspired by the things she collects, as is all her artwork. Her favorite scene to illustrate was the Lobster Quadrille, a scene Tenniel never illustrated for the original, because she always imagined how it would be every time she read it. 

Garcia's caterpillar

Garcia's Tea Party

The Lobster Quadrille, never illustrated by Tenniel

Click here to see all 42 of Tenniel's illustrations. 

Watch a video of Camille Rose Garcia drawing pictures for Snow White (done in a similar fashion to Alice):

What the Font?!

I have to admit, I’m a little bit font-obsessed. Every time I have a project due, I spend at least an hour perusing the Internet for new and unique fonts. I’ve tried my hand at identifying fonts before, usually by Googling “such-and-such movie poster font” or something like that, but I didn’t have much luck Googling “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland font”. When I did, most of the hits were along the lines of this. I was about to go with a generic talk on popular fonts in certain eras, when Erin Hensley introduced the class to a nifty site, identifont.com. With the aid of this site, I was able to find close matches to the fonts in my books.

I’ll start off with the first edition. I stumbled across this page, which happened to have some high-resolution images of a few of the pages from the first edition. Identifont thought the font used on both the title page and in the book was Monotype Modern Condensed, released in 1896—too late to be used in this book. The handy-dandy FontBook app lists a font called Monotype Old Style, which was designed in 1858 by Alexander Phemister. This seemed like a more suitable match, until I looked at it on Identifont--the Q is all wrong. So I'll go with Monotype something. Monotype Not-Corsiva. :)

Title page from Alice first edition

Text of Alice first edition

The title page of the Penguin Classics edition is eerily similar to that of the first edition, but it’s not exactly the same. It looks much more like Monotype Modern Condensed. The font in the rest of the book is different, and Identifont identified it as Bembo, released in 1929. The font in the text of the book looks way too modern to be a reasonable facsimile of the 1898 text like the title page is, so it is very possible that Bembo, or something very similar, was used.

Look familiar?

Penguin text

In the Garcia-illustrated book, the title page has the title in Garcia’s artwork, but some of the other words are in a font that is very, very familiar to me, as a Tim Burton fan. It’s called Burton’s Nightmare, and it’s based off the font used in the Nightmare Before Christmas. According to Identifont, the font used for the text of the book is EB Garamond, designed in 2010 (the same year the edition was published). I don’t know if it’s exact, but the font used in the text of the book is definitely similar. It’s definitely something Garamond. 

Garcia-illustrated title page

Check out the versals Garcia did. Love.

Next week's blog will be about illustration, which I'm excited about. :)