Here be dragons
Spent quite some time this week sorting brass lines in type cases and books in the library of the GAH printmaking studio. Making time for the mind to do its own background processing. Quite the week, huh.
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Get your dragons here*. I'm partial to this particular style of book illustrations. The motifs in the border, the double outlines around the ears, the highlights around neck, hooves and over all stylized representation. Even more decorative motifs on this silver engraved panel.
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More medieval goodies: the Vatican is digitizing its library: https://digi.vatlib.it/. Good resources for the calligraphic explorations I'm currently working on. Started re-reading Maerlants Wereld.
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About those silver engravings, this is where the intaglio/etching technique has it's roots. At some point someone found out that if you rub an engraved plate like that with ink, then remove it again from the top surface, this leaves ink only in the grooves of the engraving. If you then put a piece of paper over it and press really hard, the image on the plate gets transferred to the paper.
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A beautiful web essay on easy to create newsletters and hard to build websites. Ease of use for creation, ease of discovery for consumption and straightforward payment options are all available for email, less so for websites. “Instead, I see the web as this public good that’s been hijacked by companies trying to sell us mostly heartless junk.” But it could still be done and would still be worthwhile. I.e. here's a service that turns a folder with files into a blog: https://blot.im/. RSS could still be the browser's built-in notification system for new content. Payments still need work.
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Why Everyone Should Write puts it so well.
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Tools for a livable future. Ways of learning/doing.
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#weeknotes 2021-01