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Sunday 3 April 2016

How to Cook Sauteed Shrimp on the Stove

Shrimp is a low-fat, low-calorie food that can easily be sauteed in minutes on the stove top. Shrimp is rich in high-quality protein, and it's a good source of potassium, phosphorous, magnesium and vitamin A. It's worth noting, though, that shrimp is high in cholesterol and sodium. Because it's nutritious and simple to cook, sauteed shrimp makes a good replacement for meat and poultry in your favorite pasta dishes, stews and stir fries and other rice dishes. There are enough different sauteed shrimp recipes, as well as other methods of preparation, to keep shrimp interesting for a long time.




How to Cook Sauteed Shrimp on the Stove
A glass bowl of sauteed shrimp. Photo Credit tycoon751/iStock/Getty Images




Step 1

Rinse the shrimp in cold water. Pat them dry with clean paper towels. Remove the shells, if you like, by pinching them near the base and wiggling the shrimp meat out.

Step 2

Put 1 tbsp. of unsalted butter and 1 tbsp. of olive oil into a skillet. Preheat the skillet over medium-high heat until the butter fully melts. Substitute salted butter if it's the only kind you have, but don't season with any more salt, as the shrimp is naturally salty.
Step 3
Put the shrimp in the skillet. Give them a toss every minute or so, or flip and move them around with a wooden spoon.

Step 4

Add minced garlic or shallot, red or white wine, lemon juice, paprika, red pepper flakes, Cajun seasonings, fresh herbs or any other ingredients to taste, or as specified by the recipe you're following.

Step 5

Saute the shrimp for about 3 to 4 minutes over medium-high heat. Remove them from the skillet once they are firm and opaque.

PLASTIC LUMBER

Plastic lumber (PL) is a plastic, form of lumber (timber) made of virgin or recycled plastic. It is made of 100% plastic, not to be confused with wood-plastic composite lumber.
Widely employed in outdoor decking,it is also used for molding and trim,  and garden furniture such as park benches.
PVC window boxes will not decay.
Resistant to cracking and splitting when appropriately installed, plastic lumber can be molded with or without simulated wood grain details. Even with a wood grain design, PL is still easy to distinguish visually from natural timber: the grains are the same uniform color as the rest of the material.
Manufacturers claim plastic lumber is more environmentally-friendly and requires less maintenance than wood/plastic composites or rot-resistant wood. Unlike wood-plastic composite lumber, plastic lumber is 100% recyclable after its original intended use.
Production

Plastic lumber is composed of virgin or waste plastics including HDPE, PVC, PP, ABS, PS and PLA. The powder or pellets are mixed to a dough-like consistency at roughly 400 °F (204 °C) and then extruded or molded to the desired shape. Additives such as colorants, coupling agents, stabilizers, blowing agents, reinforcing agents, foaming agents, and lubricants help tailor the end product to the target application. The material is formed into both solid and hollow profiles or into injection molded parts and products.
Resin, regrind, and most of the additives are combined and processed in a pelletizing extruder. The new material pellets are formed in a mold and cooled. Pre-distribution testing can help determine the optimal combination of chemical agents, design, agitation, and other flow aid strategies for the specific material in use. Modern testing facilities are available to evaluate materials and determine the optimal combination of equipment components to assure the highest level of accuracy and reliability. Computerized performance test reports document equipment performance.
Properties

Plastic lumber can be molded to meet almost any desired spatial condition, a major advantage over wood. It can also be bent and fixed to form strong arching curves. Plastic lumber works like wood - it can be shaped using conventional woodworking tools. At the same time, it is waterproof and resists all types of rot and mold, although it is not as rigid as wood and may slightly deform in extremely hot weather. Plastic lumber is not sensitive to staining from a variety of agents. A major selling point of this material is it doesn't need to be painted. It is manufactured in a variety of colors, and is widely available in grays and earth tones.

Applications

Plastic lumber is used in such applications as:
  • Deck floors
  • Railings
  • Fences
  • Landscaping timbers
  • Cladding and siding
  • Park benches
  • Molding and trim
  • Window and door frames
  • Indoor and garden furniture

External Links


- Wikipedia 

Should Carrots Be Peeled or Are They More Nutritious With the Peel Left On?

Carrots add a splash of color to a variety of dishes, and their versatility makes them a staple ingredient in many kitchens. Cooking carrots can be as simple as boiling them for a few minutes, but this vegetable is also suitable to eat raw. Either way, one choice you must make is whether you'll peel your carrots. In some cases, it's healthier to enjoy your carrots unpeeled.
Should Carrots Be Peeled or Are They More Nutritious With the Peel Left On?
A stack of peeled carrots. Photo Credit edenwithin/iStock/Getty Images

Don't Be Afraid to Peel

Don't think of peeling your carrots as significantly diminishing their nutritional value. Many of a carrot's nutrients are found in the skin and immediately beneath it, but according to "The New York Times," peeled carrots are still a healthy vegetable to eat. The fact that a carrot's peel and its flesh are the same color is an indicator that the two parts of the vegetable have a similar nutritional value, notes horticulture professor Dr. Stephen Reiners in the "New York Times."
Scrub Carefully to Remove Pesticides
If you buy non-organic carrots, it's healthier to take the time to peel the skin before cooking the vegetable or eating it raw. When carrots are treated with pesticides as they grow, the peel holds the majority of the chemical. If you'd rather not peel your carrots, take time to wash them thoroughly with hot water. An alternative approach is to dilute some vinegar or a combination of lemon juice and salt in hot water before washing the carrot.

Organic Carrots Are Ideal

If you have the budget to do so, consider buying and eating organic carrots. Organic produce isn't sprayed with pesticides, which means you can safely eat the entire carrot to maximize its nutritional value. "Organic Authority" magazine reports that carrots contain a high degree of phytonutrients, many of which are found in the skin or immediately beneath it. Consuming phytonutrients leads to a number of health benefits, including lessening your risk of cancer and boosting your immune response.

Get Crunching For Your Health

The U.S. Department of Agriculture National Nutrient Database doesn't break down the nutritional value of peeled versus unpeeled carrots, but notes that raw carrots are a healthy item. One cup of chopped carrots has just 52 calories, less than a gram of fat and 3.6 grams of dietary fiber. Carrots are also a valuable source of calcium, potassium and a number of vitamins. They also provide beta carotene, which improves eye and skin health while improving your immune system.
www.livestrong.com

LAMINATE PANEL

Laminate panel is a type of manufactured timber made from thin sheets of substrates or wood veneer. It is similar to the more widely used plywood, except that it has a plastic, protective layer on one or both sides. Laminate panels are used instead of plywood because of their resistance to impact, weather, moisture, shattering in cold (ductility), and chemicals.
Laminate panel layers (called veneers) are glued together with adjacent plies having their grain at right angles to each other for greater strength. The plastic layer(s) added for protection vary in composition, thickness, color and texture according to the application.
Types

A number of varieties of laminate panel exist for different applications.
  • Plywood + ABS laminate panels
  • Plywood + FRP laminate panels
  • Plywood + aluminum laminated panels
  • Lightweight composite panels

Sizes

The most commonly used thickness range from 1/8" to 1/2" and 3/8", in a variety of colours and textures.

Applications

Laminate panels are used in many applications that need weather-proof, impact resistant sheet material. Typical end uses of spruce plywood are:
  • Floors, walls and roofs in cleanrooms
  • Vehicle internal body work
  • Packages and boxes

References

  • Panel manufacturing video, youtube.com
  • DiffeRent laminate sizes and applications, T.C.H. Laminates

- Wikipedia 

What Can You Do With London Broil Steak?

The term "London broil" is used to describe several relatively tough cuts of meat, including top round steak, shoulder steak and flank steak. It also describes a cooking method in which the steak is marinated, then grilled and sliced thinly. While grilling is the preferred cooking technique for London broil, other viable techniques include pan-frying, broiling and slow-cooking.

What Can You Do With London Broil Steak?

Serve London broil with the succulent pan juices. Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images


Grill

Marinating for at least four hours results in more tender, flavorful London broil. Use a commercial marinade or make your own from ingredients such as red wine, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce and garlic. Alternatively, use a dry rub containing your choice of seasonings such as chili powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper and paprika instead of marinade. Cook the steak on an oiled grate for about seven to nine minutes for a medium-rare steak.

Slow Cooker

Slow-cooking London broil is an effortless cooking method that produces succulent steak. Begin by placing a sliced onion in the bottom of your slow cooker. Place the steak on top of the onion, and then add ingredients such as sea salt and coarse black pepper, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, thyme and whole garlic cloves. Add liquid such as water, beef broth, whiskey, wine, beer, apple cider, tomato juice or a combination of liquids. Cook the steak on low for eight to 10 hours. Check the steak periodically and add more liquid to prevent the meat from drying out and sticking to the bottom of the slow cooker.Broil

Marinate London broil in your choice of marinades for at least four to six hours before broiling. Without marinade, this relatively tough cut of meat is dry and chewy. After marinating the meat, place the meat on an oiled grill. Broil the steak in a preheated oven, turning the meat once, until it cooks to your liking.




Pan-Fry

Pan-frying is a quick method that causes London broil to be rich and somewhat crispy on the outside but tender and succulent on the inside. To pan-fry London broil, oil a heavy skillet then preheat it until it's nearly smoking. While the pan is preheating, coat the steak with butter or olive oil, and then sprinkle it with salt. Sear the steak quickly until both sides are brown. Turn the burner to low, and then allow the steak to finish cooking until it reaches the desired level of doneness.

Tips

Allow London broil to rest for at least five minutes before carving, as resting allows the rich juices to settle into the steak. Use a sharp carving knife to cut London broil thinly against the grain, as cutting against the grain severs the tough fibers to make the meat more tender.
www.livestrong.com

Benefits of Students Eating Breakfast

Breakfast may be known as the most important meal of the day, but in many families, children are used to starting the day without the morning meal. In fact, up to 30 percent of children ages 8 to 13 don't eat breakfast every day, reports the University of Florida. Making sure your kids eat a daily breakfast is one of the simplest ways to improve their health, behavior and school performance.
Benefits of Students Eating Breakfast
A girl finishing up homework at breakfast. Photo Credit Ryan McVay/Photodisc/Getty Images

Health

In an era when childhood obesity is a rapidly growing problem, a regular breakfast may be part of the solution. Kids who eat breakfast are less likely to be overweight; this may be due to the fact that people who skip meals usually eat more calories the rest of the day. Breakfast also gives kids an opportunity to take in essential nutrients; fewer meals means fewer chances to get the many vitamins and minerals their bodies need. That's why it's not just eating breakfast that counts, but making the most of the meal by choosing nutrient-rich foods
Behavior and Performance
Breakfast doesn't just fill the stomach, it can also help children improve their academic performance. Kids who eat breakfast have higher test scores, superior concentration and better muscle coordination, and they're less likely to miss classes or report to school late, according to the University of Florida. Breakfast eaters also tend to exhibit better classroom behavior, and perform better in certain subjects like math, reports Dr. Ronald E. Kleinman, chief of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

Creating Healthy Habits

An occasional skipped breakfast is nothing to be concerned about, but kids of all ages should be in the habit of eating before starting the day. One of the best ways to establish a breakfast habit is for families to sit down together at the breakfast table every morning. Children who see their parents eating and enjoying breakfast are more likely to do the same, according to the University of Florida. Involving your kids in the food shopping and meal preparation can also create more interest in breakfast, especially if you allow them the freedom to choose some of their own foods.

Breakfast Ideas

If your children complain about not enjoying breakfast, or they're easily bored with the morning meal, offer different breakfast options or change up the menu from week to week. If the whole family is in a breakfast rut, remember that the meal doesn't have to include typical breakfast foods like eggs, cereal or waffles. Healthy and filling are the only real requirements, so try serving a turkey and cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread, a bean, egg and cheese burrito, egg salad on toast, pasta with sauteed vegetables or even leftovers from last night's dinner.
www.livestrong.com

WOODBLOCK PRINTING

Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. As a method of printing on cloth the earliest surviving examples from China date to before 220, and woodblock printing remained the most common East Asian method of printing books and other texts, as well as images, until the 19th century. Ukiyo-e is the best known type of Japanese woodblock art print. Most European uses of the technique for printing images on paper are covered by the art term woodcut, except for the block-books produced mainly in the 15th century.


Young monks printing Buddhist scriptures using the rubbing technique, Sera Monastery In Tibet.

Seals and Stamps

Prior to the invention of woodblock printing, seals and stamps were used for making impressions. The oldest of these seals came from Mesopotamia and Egypt. The use of round "cylinder seals"  for rolling an impress onto clay tables goes back to early Mesopotamian civilization before 3000 BC, where they are the most common works of art to survive, and feature complex and beautiful images. A few much larger brick (e.g. 13×13 cm) stamps for marking clay bricks survive from Akkad from around 2270 BC. There are also Roman lead pipe inscriptions of some length that were stamped, and amulet MS 5236 may be a unique surviving gold foil sheet stamped with an amulet text in the 6th century BC. However none of these used ink, which is necessary for printing (on a proper definition), but stamped marks into relatively soft materials. In both China and Egypt, the use of small stamps for seals preceded the use of larger blocks. In Europe and India, the printing of cloth certainly preceded the printing of paper or papyrus; this was probably also the case in China. The process is essentially the same—in Europe special presentation impressions of prints were often printed on silks until at least the 17th century.

Technique

The wood block is carefully prepared as a relief, pattern, which means the areas to show 'white' are cut away with a knife, chisel, or sandpaper leaving the characters or image to show in 'black' at the original surface level. The block was cut along the grain of the wood. It is necessary only to ink the block and bring it into firm and even contact with the paper or cloth to achieve an acceptable print. The content would of course print "in reverse" or mirror-image, a further complication when text was involved. The art of carving the woodcut is technically known as xylography, though the term is rarely used in English.
For colour printing, multiple blocks are used, each for one colour, although overprinting two colours may produce further colours on the print. Multiple colours can be printed by keying the paper to a frame around the woodblocks.
There are three methods of printing to consider:

Woodblock for textile printing, India, about 1900, 22×17×8 cm
Stamping
Used for many fabrics, and most early European woodcuts (1400–40). These items were printed by putting paper or fabric on a table or a flat surface with the block on top, and pressing, or hammering, the back of the block.
Rubbing
Apparently the most common for Far Eastern printing. Used for European woodcuts and block-books later in the 15th century, and very widely for cloth. The block is placed face side up on a table, with the paper or fabric on top. The back of the paper or fabric is rubbed with a "hard pad, a flat piece of wood, a burnisher, or a leather frotton".
Printing in a press
"Presses" only seem to have been used in Asia in relatively recent times. Simple weighted presses may have been used in Europe, but firm evidence is lacking. Later, printing-presses were used (from about 1480). A deceased Abbess of Mechelen in Flanders in 1465 had "unum instrumentum ad imprintendum scripturas et ymagines ... cum 14 aliis lapideis printis" ("an instrument for printing texts and pictures ... with 14 stones for printing") which is probably too early to be a Gutenberg-type printing press in that location.

In addition, jia xie is a method for dyeing textiles (usually silk) using wood blocks invented in the 5th-6th centuries in China. An upper and a lower block is made, with carved out compartments opening to the back, fitted with plugs. The cloth, usually folded a number of times, is inserted and clamped between the two blocks. By unplugging the different compartments and filling them with dyes of different colours, a multi-coloured pattern can be printed over quite a large area of folded cloth. The method is not strictly printing however, as the pattern is not caused by pressure against the block.

Color Woodblock Printing

The earliest woodblock printing known is in colour—Chinese silk from the Han Dynasty printed in three colours.
On paper, European woodcut prints with coloured blocks were invented in Germany in 1508 and are known as chiaroscuro woodcuts.
Colour is very common in Asian woodblock printing on paper; in China the first known example is a Diamond sutra of 1341, printed in black and red at the Zifu Temple in modern-day Hubei province. The earliest dated book printed in more than 2 colours is Chengshi moyuan(Chinese: 程氏墨苑), a book on ink-cakes printed in 1606 and the technique reached its height in books on art published in the first half of the 17th century. Notable examples are the Hu Zhengyan's Treatise on the Paintings and Writings of the Ten Bamboo Studio of 1633, and the Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual published in 1679 and 1701.
Mino province: Yoro-taki from the series Views of Famous Places in the Sixty-odd Provinces by Hiroshige, a ukiyo-e artist
Woodcuts of Stanislaw Raczynski (1903-1982)
In Japan, a multi-colour technique, called nishiki-en ("brocade pictures"), spread more widely, and was used for prints, from the 1760s on. Japanese woodcut became a major artistic form, although at the time it was accorded a much lower status than painting.
In both Europe and Japan, book illustrations were normally printed in black ink only, and colour reserved for individual artistic prints. In China, the reverse was true, and colour printing was used mainly in books on art and erotica.
History of woodblock printing
Origins in Asia


Yuan Dynasty woodblock edition of a Chinese play

The earliest woodblock printed fragments to survive are from China and are of silk printed with flowers in three colours from the Han Dynasty (before AD 220). It is clear that woodblock printing developed in Asia several centuries before Europe. The Chinese were the first to use the process to print solid text, and equally that, much later, in Europe the printing of images on cloth developed into the printing of images on paper (woodcuts). It is also now established that the use in Europe of the same process to print substantial amounts of text together with images in block-books only came after the development of movable type, which was developed by Bi Sheng (990–1051)during the Northern Song Dynasty of China, about four hundred years later.
In China, an alternative to woodblock printing was a system of reprography since the Han Dynasty using carved stone steles to reproduce pages of text. The three necessary components for woodblock printing are the wood block, which carries the design cut in relief; dye or ink, which had been widely used in the ancient world; and either cloth or paper, which was first developed in China, around the 3rd century BC or 2nd century BC. Woodblock printing on papyrus seems never to have been practised, although it would be possible.
A few specimen of wood block printing, possibly called tarsh in Arabic, have been excavated from a 10th-century context in Arabic Egypt. They were mostly used for prayers and amulets. The technique may be spread from China or an independent invention, but had very little impact and virtually disappeared at the end of the 14th century. In India the main importance of the technique has always been as a method of printing textiles, which has been a large industry since at least the 10th century. Large quantities of printed Indian silk and cotton were exported to Europe throughout the Modern Period.


Coloured woodcut Buddha, 10th century, China
Because Chinese has a character set running into the thousands, woodblock printing suits it better than movable type to the extent that characters only need to be created as they occur in the text. Although the Chinese had invented a form of movable type with baked clay in the 11th century, and metal movable type was invented in Korea in the 13th century, woodblocks continued to be preferred owing to the formidable challenges of typesetting Chinese text with its 40,000 or more characters. Also, the objective of printing in the East may have been more focused on standardization of ritual text (such as the Buddhist canon Tripitaka, requiring 80,000 woodblocks), and the purity of validated woodblocks could be maintained for centuries. When there was a need for the reproduction of a text, the original block could simply be brought out again, while moveable type necessitated error-prone composition of distinct "editions".
In China, Korea and Japan, the state involved itself in printing at a relatively early stage; initially only the government had the resources to finance the carving of the blocks for long works. The difference between East Asian woodblock printing and the Western printing press had major implications for the development of book culture and book markets in East Asia and Europe.
Early Printed Books in China and Korea
Woodblock printing in China is strongly associated with Buddhism, which encouraged the spread of charms and sutras. In the Tang Dynasty, a Chinese writer named Fenzhi first mentioned in his book "Yuan Xian San Ji" that the woodblock was used to print Buddhist scriptures during the Zhenguan years (AD 627~649).
The intricate frontispiece of the Diamond Sutra from Tang Dynasty China, the world's earliest dated printed book, AD 868 (British Museum).
An early example of woodblock printing on paper was discovered in 1974 in an excavation in Xi'an (the capital of Tang-Dynasty China, then called Chang'an) Shaanxi, China, whereby individual sheets of paper were pressed into wooden blocks with the text and illustrations carved into them. It is a dharani sutra printed on hem paper and dated to 650 to 670 AD, during the Tang Dynasty (618–907). Another printed document dating to the early half of the Chinese Tang Dynasty has also been found, the Saddharma pundarika sutra printed from 690 to 699.
The oldest existing print done with wood-blocks is the Mugujeonggwang great Dharani sutra that is dated between AD 704 and 751. It was found at Bulguksa, South Korea in 1966. Its Buddhist text was printed on a 8 cm × 630 cm (3.1 in × 248.0 in) mulberry, paper scroll in the early Korean Kingdom of Unified Silla. Another version of the Dharani sutra, printed in Japan around AD 770, is also frequently cited as an example of early printing. One million copies of the sutra, along with other prayers, were ordered to be produced by Empress Shōtoku. As each copy was then stored in a tiny wooden pagoda, the copies are together known as the Hyakumantō Darani (百万塔陀羅尼, "1,000,000 towers/pagodas Darani").
The world's earliest dated (AD 868) printed book is a Chinese scroll about sixteen feet long containing the text of the Diamond Sutra, It was found in 1907 by the archaeologist, Sir Marc Aurel Stein in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, and is currently in the possession of the British Museum. T book displays a great maturity of design and layout and speaks of a considerable ancestry for woodblock printing. The colophon, at the inner end, reads: Reverently [caused to be] made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 13th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong [i.e. 11 May, AD 868 ].
Dharani sutra replica exhibited at National Museum of Korea.
In late 10th century China the complete Buddhist canon Tripitaka of 130,000 pages was printed with blocks, which took between 1080 and 1102, and many other very long works were printed. Early books were on scrolls, but other book formats were developed. First came the Jingzhe zhuang or "sutra binding", a scroll folded concertina-wise, which avoided the need to unroll half a scroll to see a passage in the middle. About AD 1000 "butterfly binding" was developed; two pages were printed on a sheet, which was then folded inwards. The sheets were then pasted together at the fold to make a codex with alternate openings of printed and blank pairs of pages. In the 14th century the folding was reversed outwards to give continuous printed pages, each backed by a blank hidden page. Later the bindings were sewn rather than pasted. Only relatively small volumes (juan 卷) were bound up, and several of these would be enclosed in a cover called a tao, with wooden boards at front and back, and loops and pegs to close up the book when not in use. For example, one complete Tripitaka had over 6,400 juan in 595 tao.
Finely crafted books — like the Compendium of Materia Medica shown above — were produced in China as early as the ninth century.
Japanese Wood Block Prints
The earliest known woodblock printing dates from 764-770, when Empress Shotoku commissioned one million small wooden pagodas containing short printed scrolls—typically 6 cm × 45 cm (2.4 in × 17.7 in)—to be distributed to temples. Apart from the production of Buddhist texts, which became widespread from the 11th century in Japan, the process was only adopted in Japan for secular books surprisingly late, and a Chinese-Japanese dictionary of 1590 is the earliest known example.
Though the Jesuits operated a movable type printing-press in Nagasaki, printing equipment which Toyotomi Hideyoshi's army seized from Korea in 1593, had far greater influence on the development of the medium. Four years later, Tokugawa Ieyasu, even before becoming shogun, effected the creation of the first native movable type, using wooden type-pieces rather than metal. He oversaw the creation of 100,000 type-pieces, which were used to print a number of political and historical texts.
An edition of the Confucian Analects was printed in 1598, using a Korean moveable type printing press, at the order of Emperor Go-Yōzei. This document is the oldest work of Japanese moveable type printing extant today. Despite the appeal of moveable type, however, it was soon decided that the running script style of Japanese writing would be better reproduced using woodblocks, and so woodblocks were once more adopted; by 1640 they were once again being used for nearly all purposes.
Under the Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai, a ukiyo-e artist
The technology quickly gained popularity among publishers, and was used to produce affordable prints as well as books. As a result, Japan began to see something of literary mass production and increasing literacy. The content of these books varied widely, including travel guides, advice manuals, kibyōshi (satirical novels), sharebon (books on urban culture), art books, and play scripts for the jōruri (puppet) theatre. Often, within a certain genre, such as the jōruri theatre scripts, a particular style of writing would come to be the standard for that genre; in other words, one person's personal calligraphic style was adopted as the standard style for printing plays.
Diffusion in Eurasia
The technique is found through East and Central Asia, and in the Byzantine, world for cloth, and by AD 1000 examples of woodblock printing on paper appear in Islamic Egypt. Printing onto cloth had spread much earlier, and was common in Europe by 1300. "In the 13th century the Chinese technique of blockprinting was transmitted to Europe," soon after paper became available in Europe. The print in woodcut, later joined by engraving, quickly became an important cultural tradition for popular religious works, as well as playing cards and other uses.
Many early Chinese examples, such as the Diamond Sutra (above) contain images, mostly Buddhist, that are often elaborate. Later, some notable artists designed woodblock images for books, but the separate artistic print did not develop in China as it did in Europe and Japan. Apart from devotional images, mainly Buddhist, few "single-leaf" Chinese prints were made until the 19th century.
15-Century in Europe
Block-books, where both text and images are cut on a single block for a whole page, appeared in Europe in the mid-15th century. As they were almost always undated and without statement of printer or place of printing, determining their dates of printing has been an extremely difficult task. Allan H. Stevenson, by comparing the watermarks in the paper used in blockbooks with watermarks in dated documents, concluded that the "heyday" of blockbooks was the 1460s, but that at least one dated from about 1451. Block books printed in the 1470s were often of cheaper quality, as a cheaper alternative to books printed by printing press. Block books continued to be printed sporadically up through the end of the 15th century.
Three episodes from a block-book Biblia Pauperum illustrating typological, correspondences between the Old and New Testaments: Eve And the serpent, the Annunciation, Gideon's miracle
The most famous block-books are the Speculum Humanae Salvationis and the Ars moriendi, though in this the images and text are on different pages, but all block-cut. The Biblia pauperum, a Biblical picture-book, was the next most common title, and the great majority of block-books were popular devotional works. All block-books are fairly short at less than fifty pages. While in Europe movable metal type soon became cheap enough to replace woodblock printing for the reproduction of text, woodcuts remained a major way to reproduce images in illustrated works of early modern European printing. (See also: Old master print.
Most block-books before about 1480 were printed on only one side of the paper — if they were printed by rubbing it would be difficult to print on both sides without damaging the first one to be printed. Many were printed with two pages per sheet, producing a book with opening of two printed pages, followed by openings with two blank pages (as earlier in China). The blank pages were then glued together to produce a book looking like a type-printed one. Where both sides of a sheet have been printed, it is presumed a printing-press was used.
The method was also used extensively for printing playing cards.
Further Development in East Asia


Woodblock printing, Sera Monastery Tibet. The distinctive shape of the pages in the Tibetan books (called Pechas) goes back to Palm leaf manuscripts in ancient Buddhist India
In East Asia, woodblock printing proved to be more enduring than in Europe, continuing well into the 19th century as the major form of printing texts, especially in China, even after the introduction of the European printing press.
In countries using Arabic, Turkish and similar scripts, works, especially the Qur'an were sometimes printed by lithography in the 19th century, as the links between the characters require compromises when movable type is used which were considered inappropriate for sacred texts.
Nianhua were a form of coloured woodblock prints in China, depicting images for decoration during the Chinese New Year.
Woodblocks for printing, Sera monastery in Tibet.
Types of Wood by Chinese.
" Dr. Henry, in his "Notes on the Economic Botany of China," refers to your wish to obtain specimens of the woods used in China for printing blocks."
A woodblock from China Block Printing Museum in Yangzhou.
The name which the neighbouring city of Wuchang, enjoys for the excellence of its printing work has led me to inquire into the woods used there, and I am sending you specimens of them by parcel post.
The wood which is considered the best is the Veng li mu, which has been identified as the Pyrus betulcefolia. Bunge., and which grows in this Province. Slabs of this wood 1 ft. x 6 ins. x 1^ in. cost 150 cash, or about 5½.d.
A cheaper wood generally used for printing proclamations is the tu chung mu. Eucommia ulmoides, Oliv., has been determined to be the tu chung mu. The tu chung here used is a native of this Province.
A wood used in Kiangsu is the yin hsing mu, which is one of the names of the Salisburia adiantifolia.
Boxwood, huang yang mu, is obtained from Szechuen, but only in small pieces, which are mainly used for cutting the stamps used for private seals on letters and documents
In the third volume of the Japanese work, the "So Mokn Sei Fu," a drawing is given of the huang yang, together with a quotation from the Chinese Materia Medica, which speaks of the tree as growing an inch a year, except in these years which have an intercalary moon, when it grows backwards. From this it would appear to be a slow growing tree.
W. R. Carles, Esq., to Royal Gardens, Kew, dated Her Majesty's Consulate, Hankow, July 25, 1896.
Materials other than paper

Block printing has also been extensively used for decorative purposes such as fabrics, leathers and wallpaper. This is easiest with repetitive patterns composed of one or a small number of motifs that are small to medium in size (due to the difficulty of carving and handling larger blocks). For a multi-colour pattern, each colour element is carved as a separate block and individually inked and applied. Block printing was the standard method of producing wallpaper until the early 20th century, and is still used by a few traditionalist firms. It also remains in use for making cloth, mostly in small artisanal settings, for example in India.
William Morris used woodblock printing and on the Victoria and Albert museum website you can see the process he went through to create such works.
References

Citations

  1. ^ Schoyen collection.
  2. a b c An Introduction to a History of Woodcut, Arthur M. Hind,p64-94, Houghton Mifflin Co. 1935 (in USA), reprinted Dover Publications, 1963 ISBN 0-486-20952-0.
  3. a b c Shelagh Vainker in Anne Farrer (ed), "Caves of the Thousand Buddhas" , 1990, British Museum publications, ISBN 0-7141-1447-2.
  4. ^ "Shi zhu zhai shu hua pu". Cambridge Digital Library. Retrieved 11 August 2015.
  5. ^ Sickman, L.; Soper, A. (1971). The Art and Architecture of China. Pelican History of Art (3rd ed.). Penguin. ISBN 0-14-056110-2.
  6. ^ Berner, R. Thomas (1997). "The Ancient Chinese Process of Reprography". Technology and Culture 38 (2): 424–431. JSTOR 3107128.
  7. ^ Richard W. Bulliet (1987), "Medieval Arabic Tarsh: A Forgotten Chapter in the History of Printing". Journal of the American Oriental Society 107 (3), p. 427-438.
  8. ^ Ashmolean, Indian printed cotton.
  9. ^ "Fifty Wonders" (PDF). Korean Hero. Retrieved 2013-01-29.
  10. ^ Thomas Christensen (2007). "Did East Asian Printing Traditions Influence the European Renaissance?". Arts of Asia Magazine (to appear). Retrieved 2006-10-18.
  11. a b c Pan, Jixing (1997). "On the Origin of Printing in the Light of New Archaeological Discoveries". Chinese Science Bulletin 42 (12): 976–981 [pp. 979–980]. doi:10.1007/BF02882611. ISSN 1001-6538.

External Links


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