Creases

My enviromental ironing is piling up high,
the cards are stacked against us like an overlaoded pie,
its crust is cracked and dry;-ready for a contents spill....
what can we do now
In a world that is so ill.......

Printmaking Techniques using the Slama 'S' press.

The trickiest thing about printmaking is making that window to do it. Allowing yourself to plan that play time is key.
Whether or not you have 'a go to' or a sit down and carefully plan your image attitude toward your work; one thing that is certain is that you will still have to set up your dedicated space ready to make your plates and then print, which ever method of printmaking you choose. Or you may find it useful to be a member of a printmaking group who offer use of facilities, often for an annual, monthly, or even 'drop in' fee. It's advantages can be many; Facilities and expensive equipment are already there with out you having the outlay. Plus you have the added bonus of other experienced printmakers on hand.
There are fundamentally two categories of printmaking with many types & variations:
Basically relief printmaking; is generally categorised as where the printing ink sits on the surface of the plate. examples of this are; linocut, wood cut & wood engraving and we're used by artists such as Cyril Powers, Sybil Andrews & Hokusai.
Where as intaglio printmaking comes from the Italian word for describing incising or engraving into a material. In printmaking intaglio is used to describe engraved plates where crucially the ink sits in the engraving or marks you have made using in some cases many different processes to achieve this. Classic examples of this are; Drypoint, Etching, Engraving, Mezzotint & Collagraph just to name but a few. Some artists who have used these methods are; Rembrant, Walton Ford & Paula Rego.
There are other methods such as stencil printing as in screen printing and also lithographic printing which are called planographic prints. Artists like Andy Warhol is famous for his iconic screenprints as much as Toulouse Lautrec was for his influential Lithographic prints of 'La Belle Epoque.
In a world of have it now, as a printmaker & Tutor, I was looking for a totally portable printing press that I could actually carry and that worked well on two of the main categories of printmaking mentioned in this post. I have to say I struggled! I brought one that was a small version of a standard large press, it was just over £200. I have to say it did not cut the mustard and nearly left me with egg on my face after one Collagraph print course I ran at Greyfriars Artspace in Kings Lynn! Luckily with a bit of tweaking students came out with some results.
Since then my search continued.
In 2015 a friend told me about the Slama Press ( now named the Slama S Press). It wowed me with its simplicity but I had to make sure that it's claims were true......

posted from Bloggeroid

And why does rust stain Glass so?

I see the World is changing:
Changing too fast for me.
 I see it from an aesthete's point of view;
The beautiful remote places, have almost ceased to be.
 What is left is something that should not be;
Rubbish in Paradise;
 Simply bits of plastic left down by the sea.
Bottle tops, clothing hooks & tiny plastic label tags from our jamboree.
 Polystyrene poking up from beneath the desert scree..........
it is as far as the eye can see.
thin limbed Lambs on the scrap heaps of technology;
  Again; it once belonged to me.........
Prize metals lie in a prison of plastic that has to be;
Removed by heat and tiny hands in a desolate land of poisonous smoke where all get kippered indeed.
 How far can we go now? As we spread our thoughtless mass of discarded impulses and wants for all the world to see.

The Problem with plastics.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dianna_cohen_tough_truths_about_plastic_pollution.html