For making figures it is sometimes important (or quite important) to increase the font size of the x or y ticklabels. Here is one way I found to do it:

[cc lang="python"]
fig1 = figure()
for t in gca().get_yticklabels():
t.set_fontsize(14)

fig1.canvas.draw()

[/cc]

For some reason there has to be a [cci lang="python"]fig1.canvas.draw()[/cci] at the end of this to refresh the figure.