fisher kings. heron haiku. letterpress printing.

My father loves herons, so I decided to write a haiku and letterpress print it for his Christmas present.
I found a lovely page from an old magazine. The colour is just wonderful, and the paper has a lovely sheen and texture.

The haiku is called fisher kings, so the first task was to print the title. I use a Caslon wooden titling font for this, and gold ink.

It's rather nerve wracking printing onto a unique image, as there is only one chance to get it right! I do practice first of course!

And the title is finished.

Then to typeset the haiku. I use a second hand 12 point Times font for this, and black ink.

The old letters give a lovely impression, not at all uniform, and with minute variations that I really like.

And then it is finished. Ready to mount.

I really like this way of presenting poetry, particularly haiku, and am going to do a lot more of it next year. Trying to make my additions to an existing picture look as though they were always part of it.