Comfortable, now in COLOR

Just as an update on Monday's bleakness, my dog's been diagnosed with heart problems of a kind not uncommon in larger breeds, but still shocking given her young age. She's on a load of medicines, and the advice from the vets have all boiled down to "just keep her comfortable and we'll see." This blog was never meant to be a forum for me to air my personal goings-on, and I don't want to turn it into a pity-me-and-my-poor-ailing-pet sort of thing. That doesn't make me very comfortable, honestly.

I hope you won't think me callous if I indulge in my typical retro-paper-photo-lust, then. Believe me, there's a large part of my mind and heart tied up with the big fuzzy lump asleep at my feet.

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And now on to business, namely, fostering intra-typecaster jealousy. If you're anything like me, Strikethru's recent series on her Print Camp 2009 trip has you checking round-trip fares to Oregon. Egads, all this and Blue Moon too? When do we leave?

It was just this weekend that I pulled out some old, yellowed mimeographed worksheets from my elementary school days to show to my daughter. I swear I can remember seeing those hand-cranked machines in use at some point, but perhaps this is just a wishful, false memory. Of course, I have no need to make multiple copies of anything I've typed, or at least not to do it with ink and rollers and a pile of papers prone to jam. But you can't deny the elegance, and the purple ink... whew, nostalgia.

And so my mind wandered, as it is prone to do, back to the post about the Cuban author who wrote her novel by blind-typing, with carbon paper, and to discussion thread from the portable typewriters group from a writer wondering how to re-ink ribbons for use a manual machine after civilization's collapse. My suggestion at the time was "home-made carbon paper" and now with the experience of our novelist, this is a very likely prospect. So likely, in fact, that I thought I'd like to try it, though I don't know if I can easily find carbon paper, or want a whole pack of the messy stuff. I started thinking about carbon-less forms -- that might make interesing typecast paper -- and then like a bolt, it all came together.



These are two quickie samples from my home-made paper. Ingredients? A Rose Art "Violet" crayon, a piece of paper, a 3x5 card, and Gomez, my Olympia SM-3.

1. Cover side of paper in crayon. Really lay it on thick.
2. Place colored side of paper and blank paper together.
3. Wind through typewriter such that you are typing on the back of the colored page.
4. Type, perhaps using the underutilized "Stencil" setting (white dot on your ribbon color selector.)

I did this twice: once with a plain "raw" page, which is the top half of the typecast. The results were good, and very mimeo-ish, though the wax bits flaked off and stuck to the index card I used as a blank. You can see them above the first line, and the line of asterisks. Also, the closed letters tended to punch through all the way, filling in the loops on the "e" in a few words.

Being a neat freak, I then took the color sheet and baked it on a very low temperature in my toaster oven until the wax melted into the paper a bit, then typed the second half of the 'cast (from the asterisks down.) The type is darker, and cleaner, and the stray wax bits were bonded more to the page. Keeping in mind the low burning point of paraffin wax, I'd recommend this method if you DIY, but don't burn down your house, or blame me when you do. (Also, place the paper on tinfoil on a baking sheet of some kind, just in case.)

OK, crafty 'casters. Let's see what you can do with this. I fully expect to see bands of color, strips and swirls and such. And this needs a Clever Name. "Colorcasting" was the best I could do, but I'm sure one of you has a clever variant on "lost wax technique" or "Crayola paper" or the like.