Wood Engraving #2

ppis_engraving.jpg

This is actual size. I find that I really like the small working scale and the focus. The hands tend to cramp, though. I think this one shows a bit more control than the first attempt. Better tonal variation. Squishy letterforms. But overall worth trying again.

Wood Engraving

Trout.jpg

This was my first attempt at wood engraving, done sometime last year. It is not a good drawing. It was a technical exercise, the results of which were promising enough to permit me further study in the medium. In retrospect, I wish the modeling—the rendering of light and dark—was much more extreme. This image is very flat. Still, it has some qualities I like.

I have executed a few more wood engravings since this trout: they will be posted ‘in the fullness of time’, as my boss would say, apparently quoting Paul Rand.

Trichrome

Trichrome

Trichrome is a simple interactive diversion that I made back in 1996, when using HTML frames was still really cool (I thought). While neither a game nor a tool, Trichrome could be useful to a few, entertaining to others, and numbingly dull to the rest. This is an excercise in basic HTML. It requires only a frames-capable browser and a delight in color. There are at least 17,550 possible variations. Instructions should not be necessary.

Special Note, 02/10/05—Color frames are adjustable! Click and drag the frame border between colors in order to change the amount (relative surface area) of color. Thanks to Douglas Campbell for indicating to me that this is a cool feature that is not at all obvious.

Start Trichrome

Quonset lust

LRI_Quonset_466.jpg

I just discovered this most interesting industrial compound. These buildings comprise Landisville Railroad, Inc. (LRI), a recently defunct railroad car building and repair shop just west of Landisville, Pennsylvania. LRI is represents the end of a short spur of track that branches off the Amtrak mainline at Salunga/Landisville.

I have always liked metal quonset huts for their rugged, no-nonsense construction and sheer visual appeal. The unpaved lot on which these are situated just intensifies the feeling. Notice the traditional 6-pane windows placed as different angles—chords of the circular surface they breach. Also interesting is the scalloped metal awning over the nearest window and over the window of the building in the center background. Sweet. There are several quonsets on this compound, which I am afraid will soon be lost to progress. If I could paint…

I will try to post more shots of this location when time permits.

Trains and Grain

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If trains are big, then feed mills are huge. I love the scale of this mill in Denver, PA, photographed January 2005. This is probably quite small by Midwest standards. Notice the spiffy new-ish Archer Daniels Midland covered hopper (ADMX 7240) on the rail siding: a bit clean for my taste, but some rust-staining is evident.

Something about trains

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Welcome to the next manifestation of my continued interest in things industrial, uh, that is, my lastest obsession. Trains. The grimier the better. This photo shows a GE EMD SD38-2 at the head of a coal train just outside of Newmanstown, PA. The photo was taken in 2005 but this engine was built in the early seventies. Isn’t it beautiful?!

The Private Press of Ian Schaefer

The scene is always changing in this shop. This is how it looked in February, 2005—a little cramped. On the right, in the background, is the recently acquired, pre-war Deckel pantographic engraver , which I am hoping to bring back to life. Someday it will be used to engrave brass matrices—or punches which in turn will be driven to form matrices—for casting new metal printing types of my own design. Casting type will eventually be accomplished with Monotype equipment like the composition machine that arrived here last spring.


A view of the shop, February, 2005.


Works in progress, a.k.a. piles of type.

ATF Wordsearch

Here is the solution to the typefaces wordsearch puzzle I composed for the yet-to-be-published 2004 ATF Conference keepsake. I think it is a fairly tough puzzle: a 15 × 15 grid containing 31 words. You can generate your own wordsearches, and many other types of puzzles with Discovery School’s Puzzle maker. It used to be free.

ATF Conference 2004 – Typefaces Wordsearch

I hope you’ve enjoyed my typefaces wordsearch from the 2004 keepsake. How many faces did you find? Ten? Twenty? Don’t give up yet! There are a total of thirty-one arranged forward, backward, upward, downward and diagonally. Below you’ll find the puzzle—minus the unused letters—and the list of words hidden therein. If you simply can’t wait any longer, the solution is posted here.

A special nod to Discovery School’s very nifty Puzzlemaker for help arranging so many words in such a tight grid.

L T R A J A N U S O R E M O H
Q R I E U S E B I U S B G
U A K A A T S K I L L A
A H F E J E I D O S P A H R
D C Y N P A L C S D A A
R T T E D N I A C S O D M
A U I D I S O V O S O R O
T D N P L O I T I L F I N
A D A E P N C N O E O A D
L V E R E H F U N M U N T
R O N D O R C P V I N R O A
N I H C O C S A L O C I N V
B U L M E R I Z N S I I
G N A L K N I H T O R T E M R
D N E G E L A U T E P R E P

Blado
Bulmer
Caslon
Deepdene
Eusebius
Fournier
Garamond
Hadriano
Homero
Ionic
Janson
Kaatskill
Klang
Legend
Louvaine
Metrothin
Nicolas Cochin
Old Dutch
Orplid
Perpetua
Privat
Quadrata
Rhapsodie
Rondo
Scotch Roman
Solemnis
Tippecanoe
Trajanus
Union Pearl
Vanity Fair
Zapf Civilite