Brought on by a now redundant but initially
traumatic misunderstanding, a radical decision was made concerning the
illustrations for the Blaise Cendrars Trans-Siberian Express book: to
use only black and white for the images, rather than multiple colour
blocks, but to print the text in several colours. Far from diminishing
the visual excitment, this approach powerfully enhances the harmony of
text and image on each page. It also allows me to work much more
speedily, with only one block to cut and proof per page.
Below are examples of proofs I've taken from a
few new blocks. They don't show the actual page dimensions or layout and
the text in the bottom one is only pasted in, not hand-printed and in
colour as it will be in the final version. As I've explained in previous
posts, I'm cutting all image blocks from vinyl floor tiles.
