I just wrapped up printing the text for my thesis and now I’m moving on to the images. Which is good because my defense is in APRIL. April 8th, actually. But my show has to be set up and open to the public on the 4th. I’m having my show in the university’s observatory. I’m pretty sure this is a first for both the history of book arts AND The University of Alabama. (Roll Tide)
Yesterday was my first day printing any images so I took a few pictures.
The Prints
This spread features one of the 4 color prints. It’s the first American in space, Alan Shepard. Let’s light this candle.
This is one of the polymer plates for the Al Shepard image. This is the black layer. For more information on photopolymer plates, please see my “Award Winning” post on photopolymer plates!
This is one of the images of the moon that will be in my book. I was having paper problems, so Sarah Bryant suggested I “ink the hell out of it”, and I did. And it’s beautiful. There’s so much ink on this print that you can actually feel the moon’s craters. Which is an added bonus.
The Charts
If you’ve ever been unfortunate enough to talk to me for five minutes, you’ll know that I love hand-drawn, needlessly complex, multicolored charts. I love them so much that I show them to anyone who will look. I figure this is a good opportunity to show the whole world.
This is my standard deviation chart. Don’t be fooled into thinking I have only one of these. If you look closely at the top you’ll see that this is the “OVERALL” standard deviation chart. I also have separate deviation charts for the text portions and image portions. I like to know how many I screw up and this helps me visualize that. For another “fine” standard deviation chart, you should probably look at this other post.
This helps me keep track of all my settings. Unlike the standard deviation chart, this one is actually quite useful.
This is my color distribution chart. It tracks how many times each color appears throughout the book and how much of that color appears on any given page. Usefulness rating: 4 out of 10.
This is quite simply the best, most useful chart I’ve ever created. It shows the front and back of each spread in the book. I constantly use this as I’m printing to make sure I’m printing the correct thing on the back of some other correct thing. It also helps me keep track of which portion of each page I’ve completed via a complicated series of color-coded marks below that page. This book has 3 different colors of text and four different colors for images, so things can get pretty complicated pretty fast. Anyway, I love this chart. After this is all over I’m having it framed. Or maybe bronzed. Or both.