Hello there

Hi there,


I'm very happy to be posting my first thread . I would like to start off with noting that English is not my main language, though i can understand it perfectly, my writing and speaking is a bit off, just in case you go through this text seeing some misspelled or misconstructed sentences. (And feel free to correct me in case i'm wrong Okay so here we go.

I have totally forgotten how i first came into contact with astrology, but it was quite long time ago already. But it's been only for the last 2 years, that i have started to study it more in depth. While looking up lots of aspects and other astrological info i have stumbled on this forum on several occasions and liked it very much. It seems as a very nice place for discovering people with the same interests, and other knowledge that is closely associated with astrology , like;
the arts, mythology, archetypes, the magical teachings of the self and the world.. And finding meaning and purpose through and with all the different possibilities that life has to offer

Besides these interests, i am currently studying Herbalism with an evening school program. I graduated 2 years ago as a Lithographer (printmaker) at the academy for Fine arts in Antwerp. As most people who graduate from art, it's difficult to envision what possible future(s) might be available. For this and several other reasons i have started to study my chart in depth. Still i have many questions, but i am slowly learning in more deep and associative ways.

I have this ideal dream where i could be living in the countryside, in a nice old house, living for the arts, in a wild and beautiful nature. Growing own food and vegetables and plants and flowers to help the sickened and low spirited ones, which offcourse also include animals (though i like to believe they are already in perfect shape living in the good balance called nature Mainly my life is really about nature and art and traveling (mostly because of these previous interests). These are the 2 recurring themes so far. as a child i was also very much into history and archeology, and the spiritual learnings from the East, and through astrology it is somehow coming back to me, the mythologies, jung, meditation and the teachings of love, the cycles of time and all knowledge once known naturally.

So these are kind of my biggest interests and inspirations. I can also be quite obsessive about those, so much even that I fly to the other side of the world just to see a Matisse or a Picasso.. i'd also love to travel botanical gardens everywhere around the world, studying the plants aswell as the (older) tribes who were using these.

Allright, this was quite a long presentation of who i am, what i like and where i hope to be going. and offcourse this all can change, so i am ready to open my head even a little bit more and learn more and better from and with all of you

Have a great night and day !

i have been looking at vocational astrology lately, and some time ago was reading about epoch. i find this both to be fascinating.

have been using transits for getting rid of for example smoking. this was succesfull on the new moon several months ago, paired up with positive mind influences from meditation.

also i have noticed that i tend to fall in love with people and ideas who represent the house venus is transiting through. and when mars was sextile saturn earlier this year i finally found a job with an incredibly nice atmosphere.

this made me think about astrology more in line of possibilities. as the energy presents an archetype, a combination of joined energies, and that somehow we can tab into it, producing several outcomes but always connected to this transiting energy.

in this way astrology can be a helpful guide, figuring out myself and the outer world, dissolving both, as also dissolving the differences between inner and outer.

as i have neptune conjunct the mc, and venus squaring both, i am very idealistic, artistic, and always looking for the nebula somehow in both positive and negative ways. the more i am aware of this tendency, the better i can see and choose reality, this has been very helpful. because of this mc and aspects, everything about finding out my destiny, my inner purpose is clouded. through the forum i hope to learn more about this situation.

anyway everything neptunian attracts me, making perfumes, drawing animations, printmaking, helping people with natural medicine and so on. how to do this, is a question, or which one to choose specifically.

i have noticed aries point being in venus and neptune. and as i've also just discovered that sun is conjunct spica, it makes sense why i am strongly attracted to the land. the earth and harvesting. (which i never really understood because my aries asc and sagittarius moon in fire and several other planets in water and air seem to contradict this. i have only 2 planets in earth sign.

Ok this will do for now, it is very difficult and tiring a bit to write about this out of nowhere. even though my chart seems to show i am social and free flowing, this is only when i invest lots of energy and will into it

i hope to have been more in depth than the previous post, and have shown more from myself.

and i will post my chart later on.

have a great day.

Very nice introduction Loup.

Welcome to our community.

English may not be your main language but you speak better than a lot of native fellow Americans do. I wish I could speak my second language (German) even 1/3 as well as you speak English. Lithography - interesting. I love the old medieval woodcuts and the 19th century wood cuts. I did lithography in a different career, while working in the computer chip industry. The lithography there is very similar to film lithography and in a abstract sense, wood cut lithography. Welcome aboard and feel free to contribute at any time.

Thank you Greybeard; i already feel at home !

And Mdinaz, thank you too for the compliment. Here in Europe most people speak well 2nd and 3rd languages. As we are all living here close to each other geographically and mingle a lot internationally it seems to be normal. I wish you lots of good luck with your practice of the German language.
As to lithography, it's fascinating to hear you know of it and experienced it.

Do you mean it was some kind of offset you were using in chip industry? I actually know only of the more traditional ways involving limestones, acid and water. Though there are plenty of cool stuff coming around these days with plastic slates and plates that need no acid preparations anymore. not very stable but a lot more fun and experimental

Computer chip lithography is done via photoresist and UV light - a silicon wafer is coated with photoresist, a light-sensitive resin similar to film emulsion. A quartz/chrome mask called a photomask, which has the image of the computer chip on it, has a UV lamp in the 285 or 365 nm range shone through it, and various lenses step the image down to a much smaller size - rather than enlarging it as in a negative enlarger. This image is printed upon the silicon wafer, which is then processed and developed much like film. If using positive resist, the exposed areas are developed away, if negative resist the unexposed areas are developed away. Then using various methods, the exposed areas that are developed away are then blasted with another material, and the resist cleaned off and the remainder is as a wood cut. The remaining pattern is formed of the new material in the image of what was on the photomask. Deposition of metal layers is a similar method. This process occurs in many layers which have to overlay exactly, in as many as 40+ layers. The photomask is created in a similar manner but the image is typically formed from an electron beam, not UV light - but otherwise the process is very similar with regards to exposure and developing and etch (in which case the exposed chrome is etched away).

i had never imagined litho might be used in such a way. this practically sounds as SciFi. i just watched some youtube video about it. impressive technology, especially the multi-layeredness of the patterns formed upon/within the layers.

so depending on the positive or negative resist a technical woodcut or etching is formed. it would be interesting of using this technique in a bigger form, creating plates which can actually be printed afterwards. especially for images who have to be really precise this could be some nice experiment. but even without being inked it could be an interesting object due to the possibility of multilayeredness and possible uses of metal. would have some alien atmosphere to it.

do you ever make woodcuts yourself?

I did in what Americans call "high school" (I think in German it is "gymnasium") but my efforts were pretty crude. It makes me appreciate the skill of the medieval or 19th century wood cuts.

You could probably make your own version of a photomask to make prints, as you can buy pre-coated photomask blanks. You would have to develop a manner of creating the pattern into the photomask but you could develop and etch with common chemicals. Positive photoresist is usually developed with ammonium hydroxide, which is essentially highly concentrated soap. Negative resist is usually developed with xylene which you DON'T want to mess with. I don't remember what they use to etch away the chrome. From there you could create prints with common film emulsion and any powerful lamp, although you can purchase xenon-arc UV lamps. Might be an interesting experiment.

gymnasium is very correct

and yes, it's incredible how detailed some woodcuts can be. Some old teacher of mine carves very small ones, and so rich in lines and tones. sometimes they are only 5 x 8 cm's. 2 to 3 inches in size..

the opposite is also impressive. i work in a shop where we sell all kind of materials for artistic and creative purposes and some woman who comes to buy her cutters here, makes woodcuts of some meters wide and prints them with only a spoon.

do you know of are alternatives for xylene? my roommate also likes to experiment with alternatives to the classic copper-etching, this might be interesting for both of us. thank you

Just wanted to say a quick hello from a newbie to this forum and fellow artist in London. I work with sound and sculpture. Speak soon!

Hi there and welcome aboard !

Thanks! You too. Look forward to all the astro info