Thursday, December 29, 2011

LOVE CARDS

love cards
Hill End Press has the perfect love card for the one you want to connect to.



I really really, really love you




LETS DANCE FOREVER


Mini Graff DAILY'S

Mini Graff's DAILY'S consist of ink and guoache drawings inspired by the Hill End landscape. Mini Graff was an artist in residency in 2010 staying at Haefligers Cottage supported by the Bathurst Regional Art Gallery. Since her residency Mini Graff has returned many times, see more Mini Graff DAILY'S
 
 


 


Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The meeting of SENTINEL and the 130 year old pear tree





Mist

the whole landscape is in dull lustre

weaving through Sentinel

black as piano keys.

 The pear tree spoke clear 

 of the beauty of Hill End


Sunday, March 6, 2011

Beautiful letterpress stationery ready for you at T2 stores nationally mid March

Our unique handcrafted letterpress cards have just left Hill End Press's country studio on a delightful journey to all the T2 tea stores nationally.www.t2tea.com/

These are very very special cards for you, that really are all handcrafted from the very start, something that is a rarity today.
Our beautiful lifestyle here at Hill End enables us to be creative and develop gift cards that are as unique as the surroundings we live in.
We start by designing our cards with drawings of our garden where roses are abundant and develop the letterpress plates in our darkroom.
Then we hand cut our Italian cotton art paper with its elegant texture in two processes, this is then taken to the Gordons Platen Press a 80 year old foot pedal operated printing machine.
Here Bill hand places the cut paper, one by one into the printing machine operating it with his foot and this spins the large solid fly wheel and that turns the inked rollers and prints the image.
So one by one each card is printed and checked for high quality printing. I then place them onto the drying rack and here they stay overnight till the ink is touch dry.
Bill printing with careful consideration 
Genevieve inking up





We use our baby Adana to add the letterpress font 'For You'
Cards drying on the rack for the night
This is our card creasing machine, its an old chinese press with a shovel lever that we modified and we think the little red book was originally printed on it!

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

WORKSHOPS AT HILL END PRESS

3 DAY INTENSIVE PHOTOGRAVURE WORKSHOPS
Cost $500.00 - including materials for one A4 photogravure plate and lunch provided.
Workshops are limited to four students
Dates: Commencing Easter weekend Friday 22nd April, thence, 3rd weekend of each month.
For bookings email info@hillendpress.com.au

Our printmaking studio is offering 3 day workshops in this evocative but elusive intaglio process. In an interesting mixture of digital and traditional techniques, students will learn to produce and print a copperplate photogravure print from either a digital file or image produced here in the beautiful landscape of Hill End.
A knowledge of printmaking, photography and basic photoshop is required.
Please come prepared with:
High resolution digital file of images or digital camera

Sign up, payment and cancellation policy:
To hold a reservation we require a deposit of 50% of class fees and the remainder to be paid on the day.
2 week notice for cancellations to receive a full refund of the deposit.

LETTERPRESS AND LINO CUT POSTER 2 DAY WORKSHOP
Cost: $250.00 lunch included
Materials to bring:
50 x 75cm cartridge for proofing and quality art paper for editions.
Lino cutting tools


Come and enjoy the experience of using the 1960's Farley proofing press as printers Wendy Murray and master printer Antonia Aitken from Megalo studios did. Here you can learn to print posters with your own linocut designs and learn to set wood and metal type from our vintage collection.
Commencing: 30th April Sat-Sun and thence, last weekend of each month. Email for bookings:info@hillendpress.com.au


Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Collaboration with Wendy Murray and Antonia Aitken Megalo print studio











Just before Christmas we were given the most enjoyable treat of having invited artists Antonia Aitken from Megalo Print Studio in Canberra and Wendy Murray. The two of them having had a memorable Hill End Arts Residency through Bathurst Regional Gallery, it wasn't hard to get them to come back.
This experience of having these two inspiring women collaborating in our print room was a weekend we won't forget.
The two of them took to our Farley proofing press and our collection of lead and wooden type with such enthusiasm and sense of order that Bill and I watched from a distance.  
 Firstly starting off with the poster design which had a carnival mood to it, upon the page lept Wendy's Jo and Josephine, Antonia's black dog Tango and the Hill End Press rabbit. These were created in lino cuts by Antonia while we all were sitting up watching the Dvd Pet Cemetery(kindly brought by Wendy to celebrate our family christmas night together!)
The next stage was for the lead type drawers to be fully explored with Wendy and Antonia taking great delight in choosing, sorting type and fitting it all into the chase.(Hill End Press now has another type drawer sorted)
Then the girls and Bill cranked up the Farley (flat bed press) with others watching eagerly on. As this press never came with instructions and no manual exists as far as we know, there was a bit of juggling but persistence prevailed and we were rewarded with a great image.
This press was originally intended for newspapers as a final confirmation and check before going to print. Ours came from Wilcannia Newspaper with chases still set in type with wonderful stories of the local people and two chests of type thanks to artist Simryn Gill and Nicky Bry MCA contacting us to send them to a happy print home. 
After a few goes on cartridge paper and adjustments we did the final prints on art paper that Antonia had kindly brought with her. 
The results we were very inspired from with this style of printing especially when wooden type is used as it has beautiful nuances in it that can never be done with computer generated printing, this was where the delight lay in the print.
So for Bill and I at Hill End Press it was a top weekend mainly for the reason of this wonderful energy and enthusiasm in the studio, our dinners together, exploring Hill End tip, a must see and the hanging of the Christmas lights that Wendy had found still in their original packaging from the 60's in Bathurst.
We had a lot of fun getting to know each other and satisfaction of achieving and collaborating with Wendy and Antonia we would welcome them back at the drop of a hat.