Day 16 of my 30 days of art class was the second day of a 4 day intensive letterpress class at the ps”>San Francisco Center for the Book.

After getting to know the letterpress shop the day before, I felt far more comfortable on day two. I sort of knew what I was doing! Our second project was a broadsheet – a small poster that had a LOT of text.

I selected a quote from one of my favorite musicians and all-around creative muses, Amanda Palmer. The quote was from her book, “The Art of Asking” (which I HIGHLY recommend for all creatives), here’s the quote:

“When you’re an artist, nobody ever tells you or hits you with the magic wand of legitimacy. You have to hit your own head with your own handmade wand. And you feel stupid doing it.”

It doesn’t look like much, but believe me that it took a LONG time to set all of that type. I’d estimate that 80% of my day was spent figuring out how to make it all look good – long before I selected any ink or put it on the letterpress.

Here’s the first two sections, laid out and tied off:

A few hours after lunch, I was finally ready to do a few test runs and pull the pretty final copies. Here’s what everything looked like laid out on the actual letterpress, right before I started to pull the prints (dig that funky purple ink!):

I was REALLY happy with the way it turned out, especially considering it was only the second time I’d printed anything with letterpress. We were able to make 15 copies, so after the class was all done, I mailed a bunch to members of my fellow fans via the Amanda Palmer Patreon group. Everyone was SUPER stoked to get a copy – and one person even sent me a few photos of a framed version on the wall of their room (very excited about that):