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How to Make a DIY Printing Press from a Panini Press

January 23, 2017 by Ashley Hackshaw

This tutorial is how to make a DIY printing press from an old panini press!

I was trying to convince Brett to make me a printing press one day when all the sudden it clicked that I could probably make a printing press from our old panini press. I haven’t made a panini in a long time and this old Cuisinart was just sitting around in the basement. Really you could use any type of food press that has a floating hinge, one that will angle the griddle parallel. Here’s a quick animation of me using my press:

A video posted by Ashley Hackshaw (@lilblueboo) on Dec 21, 2016 at 10:35am PST

So first you’l need an old panini press or some type of floating hinge press:

Two piece of felt and two flat pieces of 1/4″ wood will make up the inside of the press:

I use my press to print linoleum block prints or speedy carve blocks. Here are a few in progress:

Designing a block print:

Using the linoleum cutter to carve out the print:

Speedball offers this starter kit for block printing that has all the tools you need:

When you have a linoleum block ready to print you just make a sandwich of layers inside the press starting with one of the pieces of wood:

Then a layer of felt:

Now it’s time to apply ink to the block. I use a piece of glass or plexiglass to roll out my water-soluble printing ink so that I get a smooth layer. I roll it out using a printing brayer:

Then I roll a layer of ink onto the block making sure to roll in all directions so that every part of the block is covered:

Then I place a sheet of paper onto the felt and carefully place my block face down onto the paper:

I add a layer of felt and another piece of wood:

And close the press:

The floating hinge of the press allows the top of the press to come down at a flat angle and the leverage results in an even firm pressure:

I open the press and remove the block and paper. Then carefully peel the paper away from the block:

It’s an easy way to make print after print without killing your palms and getting an even consistent press:

I love how these turned out:

This is my Foshizzle print. I offer it here on Etsy:

Proceeds from my Happy print go to Happy the Happiest Dog’s medical expenses:

You can read more about Happy here! She’s the sweetest addition to our family.

Also, you can find more tutorials on printing and stamp carving here or below:

Make a Personalized “Postage” Stamp

Hand-Stamped Party and Table Decor:

Hand-Stamped Clothing:

An Introduction to Block Printing:

How to Make Eco-Friendly Party Decor:

How to Make Easy Foam Stamps:

Contemplating instead of Completing

January 19, 2017 by Ashley Hackshaw

Five years ago this month I went to breakfast with my family at a small diner we always frequented. As we waited for our food I combed my fingers through my hair and I was mortified to find the hair had ended up in my hand. My mother saw and quickly grabbed it and wrapped it up in a napkin. Later that day my friend Tara helped Brett and Sienna shave all my hair off:

My oncologist said that after five years the odds of my cancer returning goes down to almost zero. It will be five years this July. I was thinking about that yesterday as a few people remarked how long my hair was getting. Last year I decided I was going to finally grow it back out after I found out Sienna was telling people I had short hair because of cancer. My hair would have long since have grown out but I’d kept it short. My hair is almost shoulder length now, it’s finally getting to an un-awkward length. I guess that’s a milestone? And while my hair is slowly becoming un-awkward, I am continuing to embrace my overall awkwardness. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I savor the contemplative life I have now. I find so much joy hanging out with dogs, chickens and crows all day long. If they teach me anything it’s to slow down and stay there. My chickens lay one egg a day, and spend the rest of the day foraging so that they have the energy to do it again. That’s a good model I think. Good things take time.

I was listening to the On Being podcast the other day with Maria Popova and I just loved how she put this…that there is “no shortcut for the conquest of meaning”:

We seem somehow bored with thinking. We want to instantly know. And there’s this epidemic of listicles. Why think about what constitutes a great work of art when you can skim the “20 Most Expensive Paintings in History?” And I’m very guided by this desire to counter that in myself because I am, like everybody else, a product of my time and my culture. And I remember, there’s a really beautiful commencement address that Adrienne Rich gave in 1977 in which she said that an education is not something that you get but something that you claim.

And I think that’s very much true of knowledge itself. The reason we’re so increasingly intolerant of long articles and why we skim them, why we skip forward even in a short video that reduces a 300-page book into a three-minute animation — even in that we skip forward — is that we’ve been infected with this kind of pathological impatience that makes us want to have the knowledge but not do the work of claiming it. I mean, the true material of knowledge is meaning. And the meaningful is the opposite of the trivial. And the only thing that we should have gleaned by skimming and skipping forward is really trivia. And the only way to glean knowledge is contemplation. And the road to that is time. There’s nothing else. It’s just time. There is no shortcut for the conquest of meaning. And ultimately, it is meaning that we seek to give to our lives.

Five years later I can say that I’ve found meaning in everything that has happened. But I had to go and find it, and I’m still seeking it. I feel like my chickens sometimes….constantly foraging. That’s why this little online space of mine hasn’t morphed so much. I am not in a hurry anymore. I don’t feel the pressure to make it all flashy and impressive. It’s just the place where I post about what I am foraging, what I loving and what I am learning. I spend more time contemplating than I do completing. And sometimes I’m only contemplating chickens and dogs and painting. All good and awkward things to love I think.

(from Onbeing)

Painting A Day – Week 2

January 15, 2017 by Ashley Hackshaw

It feels good to be back in the studio. It’s so true about the importance of establishing a practice for painting but I never know what I’m going to paint each day…it just kind of comes to me when I sit down at my little work table:

Here are all the paintings I painted last week:

A watercolor with a quote:

“Wandering Planet” (Sold)

A winter birch tree scene in watercolor (although a few people said they see elephants):

“First Snow” (Sold)

These tiny watercolor scenes of the Smoky Mountains in lockets:

“Mountain Midnight” Lockets (Sold)

A layered painting with vintage embroidery stitched onto the canvas:

“Enjoy the Little Things” (Sold)

Another watercolor scene of the Smokies:

“Mountain Midnight” (Sold)

Another layered painting with vintage embroidery stitched onto the canvas:

“Sunshine” (Sold)

Yesterday I decided to paint on something other than a flat surface and made this little ceramic steer skull:

I’ve been working on these two reclaimed wood pieces for a while now. I ended up finishing them this week (outside of the daily paintings)…finally stitching up the cracks. I love the Japanese practice of Kintsugi…the art of repairing broken pottery by filling the cracks with gold. It treats the crack as part of the history of an object rather than a defect. I painted these paintings on reclaimed wood knowing that existing cracks would only get larger as the paint dried and pulled. Instead of filling the cracks with gold I used gold thread to “stitch” them back together…highlighting the cracks instead of trying to cover them up or fill them.

“Grow” 15.75 x 20 on Reclaimed Wood

“Bloom” 15.75 x 20 on Reclaimed Wood

And one last layered painting with the vintage embroidery:

“Wild and Free”

I think I might try a theme next week: animals. We’ll see how that works out! I’m still stitching a button/bead a day too…here’s how that looks as of today:

Who else is doing a 365 Challenge?