Vermont artist Briony Morrow-Cribbs produced the 12 beautiful copperplates for my new book, “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” and soon we will post a documentary on the intense hand-work process she used to produce the plates.
The short film is being made by my cousin Jessamyn West, also of Vermont, with still photos from my aunt Liz West. Aunt Muffet, as she is known to me, took the above photo of Briony with the plate for the six-board chest. You can check out her Flickr feed here.
You’ll be hearing more about the plate-making process in the coming weeks. And if you are coming to Covington next month for the book-release party and Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event at Braxton Brewing Co., you’ll be able to see all 12 plates first-hand and close up.
— Christopher Schwarz
Great work Briony! Can’t wait to see these plates in person.
I just watched the video on Briony’s site. Very skilled and very time-consuming. Beautiful stuff.
As an artist and graphic designer, I love this! I’ve done some other forms of printing, but never copper plate etching and I was always curious. Thanks for posting this. Is this how Roubo’s books were illustrated? Perhaps not with copper plates, as I don’t think they were made back then.
Roubo’s plates were indeed made with copperplate. But he engraved them with burins. But in the end you will see the engraving and etching processes are very similar.
Neat! Thanks.