THE EXHAUSTED PIGEON CARD!

I came across a meme on Facebook that said " I'm Not an Early Bird. I'm Not a Night Owl. I'm an Exhausted Pigeon". It was just text without any drawings or photos. I loved it! I started a Google search and could not find any indication that it was copyrighted or belonged to anyone.
I checked Etsy and found 12 shops selling their own goods with the saying on it, so I was in the clear!

I designed the lettering layout and made an engraving of a little pigeon. After posting the mock-up on our INSTAGRAM page, a few people mentioned that I should site "Gemma Correll" as this was her idea. YIKES!

So we stopped the press (literally), and I immediately found Gemma's website and her comic featuring the "Exhausted Pigeon" idea. I emailed/messaged her and asked for permission to use the idea for one of our cards. Our wording was a little different and our card features an engraving very different from her style of artwork.  She got back to me via Instagram and said it would be fine to use, as it's already been plastered all over the internet. So we went forward with the card!

Our Finished Card!!

Nice deep impression!

The cards looked fun, but they needed a little something... so i used a grey watercolor wash for the pigeon along with a little orange. That did the trick!

I decided to film and put together a YouTube video of the printing process for these cards. I chat alot on Instagram about printing letterpress cards using an etching press. I wanted a higher quality, slightly longer video that would be helpful to printmakers looking to do the same!

This video shows the technique I use to print photo polymer plates on an etching press in order to make deep impression letterpress prints and cards. The process is very simple, and with some practice can produce beautiful letterpress prints. The card I am printing is based on the ideas of Gemma Correll.

The entire process for these fun little cards was worthy a blog entry. It's important to reach out to artists if you want to reference or use their ideas or work in any way. Gemma's a very busy artist in high demand and I'm grateful she got back to us and allowed Spofford Press to use her funny concept!!

These are available in our Etsy Shop right here: PIGEON CARD!

WE'RE ON YOUTUBE!!!!!!!!

We love showing the process of what we do. Our Instagram is filled with short how to letterpress videos and shots of engravings as they come along.

Recently, we decided we wanted to make more in-depth videos and have them be in high resolution without the time restraints of Instagram. So, here we go!

There are a few videos posted already with many more to come. We get super backed up with projects all year but we're going to make an effort to have some fun with our YouTube channel!

A short video showing how I use an Elliptical Tint Tool, or "Spitsticker", on a Resingrave block. Resingrave is a synthetic alternative to the end-grain boxwood used in traditional wood engraving. These tools are kept extremely sharp, and they have the ability to engrave a line that swells and tapers, bringing out highlights and showing dimension in an image.

Here's a quick slideshow of our print shop I put together earlier this year for our Instagram account. You can see everything from our presses to our cards, block storage and even an engraving in the works. If you would like to see more videos and tons of printmaking posts, check us out on Instagram or the web!

So, take a look HERE! ! Hit the "subscribe" button and let us know what you think!  Our URL is a bunch of random letters and numbers because YouTube won't give us a "/spoffordpress" URL until we have 100 subscribers. Kinda weird. So get your friends to subscribe too!! 

The easiest way to find us is to just do a search for "Spofford Press" and we pop up!