Please transfer your allegiance to my new blog, thank you

Frontispiece by Martin Dace from A Mermaid in the Bath by Milton Marmalade

My new art blog is at daceart.wordpress.com. Originally I abandoned Wordpress because I found it difficult to use, but while it takes a bit of getting used to, it allows me to display my work in a more professional form. It also means there is lots for you to look at even if I don't manage to post very often.

Milton Marmalade's blog is at miltonmarmalade.blogspot.co.uk. Milton Marmalade is the author of A Mermaid in the Bath, for which I did the illustrations. It is the story of how a rather dull and ordinary man is transformed by his heroic rescue of a captured mermaid, and it is full of love, life, random experiences of higher consciousness (that is to say, consciousness), together with quite a few jokes.

Kitchen lithography

I should like to draw your attention to Émilie Aizier's method of kitchen lithography. The technique involves the use of non-toxic materials to be found in an ordinary kitchen.

Stone lithography printing allows unusual freedom of expression. Images can be drawn or painted and the range of marks possible is immense. I learned stone lithography at Morley College in London some years ago, but I have not been able to practise it since, because it requires several things I don't have, that is, sufficient space, a lithography stone, a litho press and a supply of nitric acid. Therefore I was very interested to learn of a method of lithography that uses such friendly materials as aluminium foil and cola.

Perhaps when time allows I'll have a go, meanwhile for those who are interested you can order the book (available in English, French or Spanish) from the author.