Woodside Press

Open House NYC is an annual event where buildings and sites in the city that are usually not accessible to the public are opened up to visitors. Last year, it coincided with the end of my time as a Visiting Artist at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Although I'd had access to the Yard for months, I hadn't actually been inside many of the businesses. So I spent much of that day drawing inside Kings County Distillery and Brooklyn Roasting Company. At the very end of the day, I was wandering through Building 2, visiting various shops and studios, when I came across a room full of old printing presses. It was Woodside Press. All the old machines looked so cool, but it was the very end of the day and there was no more time to draw anything, and I wasn't able to make it back before the residency ended. So when Open House rolled around this year, I made a return trip to the Yard and made it a point of dropping by to sketch. It is a traditional letterpress printing studio that produces business cards, posters, stationary, etc., and does book-binding. They sometimes host tours and workshops.

These are just two of the presses they own. They are Chandler & Price platen letterpresses, dating back to the mid to late 1940's. This post from another printmaker, Tiny Dog Press, has a good step-by-step demonstration of how these presses work.

Chandler & Price founded in 1884 in Cleveland by Harrison T. Chandler, an Illinois banker, and William H. Price, son of a builder of printing presses. The company came to dominate the market through the 1960's, when offset duplicating led to the decline to the letterpress. The company went out of business in 1964, but its machines are still in use by printmakers today.

Below are two process pictures for the above drawing. First, down in 2H pencil. This was done very fast, and rougher and looser than I usually do, because of time. Then, finished in ink, mostly with Micron pens. I relied heavily on photo reference I'd taken for some of the machine details. Then applied the color with watercolor and Derwent Inktense pencils.

History of Chandler & Price: C & P - Pressman's Favorite