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Hi I'm Jason Shoemaker at Slugfest Printmaking Workshop and we are going to talk a little
bit about engraving. Engraving is special. It is a direct process so there's no acid,
there is no other techniques you can make a mark in the metal and immediately print
that and that is favored by some artists especially me. I like to just be able to make a mark,
a very expressive mark and it is a technology that has been around for about 600 years now
and this was how everything was done with this little tool here. Every mark in every
book was made by this. This is a burin and it is a square piece of steel and it has a
wooden handle. It is a little awkward at first in making a mark in a very different way and
most people have always made a mark from a pencil and changing this can be a little different
but it is not that bad once you get moving. There is a few things to know. You have your
shaft here and it is a piece of steel and it has a 45 degree angle cut out of the top
of it and that gives you a point and this called your face. You have your runner on
this side and you also have your other runner and all of these are going to be sharpened
up nice and square and you will get a nice point that is going to stick into this metal
to give me a mark and that mark is very different from an etched mark in that we are just altering
the pressure you can give life to that mark that just cannot be matched by any other means.