Year(s) of the Boar--an Old boar for a New Year.

S's original 2007 drawing/prototype.

February 5th marks this year's Chinese New Year.
According to the Asian Zodiac, 2019 is the year of the Boar, the last Pig year being 12 years ago in 2007, and THIS year, I've decided to reproduce a drawing done 12 years ago by my younger son, S.
It's a story that many know already.
In 2007, I had just started making woodblock prints and I had intended to join that year's Baren Forum Zodiac Exchange (the sign-up closed before I could join so my print wasn't included).
As is my usual working method, I made thumbnail sketches, redrew and redrew while looking at multiple images from the internet. The prep stages took a couple of weeks before I decided on an image that was then carved and printed for the Year of the Boar, 2007.  But S wasn't really interested in signing a family card and said he would make one of his own. So he disappeared for about 25 minutes and came back with the image you see above. We were thrilled with his drawing and photocopied it to include inside the envelope with my card. But he was clearly unhappy and he became more and more disturbed until he finally burst into tears, distraught and inconsolable over the idea that he couldn't draw as well as I did.
I made it worse by laughing at the obvious--and I tried to convince him what I knew to be the truth, that his drawing was original, and funny, and wonderfully creative and perfect and much, much, much better than mine. (He didn't believe me).  I promised then that the next year (Year of the Rat) he would design the family card (and he did).

Now it's 2019 and S. is now 18. He doesn't draw as much as I'd like, and he's into Manga, so much of what he does draw looks a little too much like rather anonymous Japanese or Korean manga. But he's also learning Japanese and hopes to visit Japan next year after he finishes high school. And 12 years later I still think his boar is fantastic and he accepted my proposal to use it for this year's greeting card.  He made a couple of adjustments, adding the Kanji symbol for "Boar" and the "new" year-- 2019.  And I removed the text at the bottom to make it easier to print and carve.

The new key block, from tracing the old and carving it from a linoleum block.

Two of the color blocks printed.

2019 Year of the Boar (Proof)

 I tried to keep it as close as possible to the original sketch. There is a linoleum key block and 3 additional wood blocks for the color plates. (Yellow(background), Brown (Boar body/head), and a mixed block to print the pink snout, the tan trotters and the bokashi-stained tusks of our spirited boar. All were printed with watercolors, sumi ink, and rice paste using a baren. 

A White-Line, Pink Lily

I wanted to have another go at a white line or Provincetown print. (I've done a couple already--my "Tree Farm at Night" from 2016, last year's Baren exchange print, "Apostrophetic",  and my afternoon experiment from last summer, "Sweet Tea".  I was very happy with how "Apostrophetic turned out, but wanted to try a simpler print to see if I can work on a version of this method that works for me.

It's an odd technique--using just one block and allows for lots of freedom for color application but as one print is produced at a time, it's more suitable for unique prints or very short runs.
Here is the one block after I transferred the image but before it was cut. 

This was a simple image, close-cropped to both allow the shapes to be bigger and easier to brush in with pigment and to allow for a little drama.

While a traditional white line is made by tacking the paper to the block, folding it back, and applying the color with a brush to a small area, flipping back the paper and printing that section and repeating this for each area and multiple times to build up stronger and more uniform color.

I've approached it more as a variant of traditional mokuhanga using dampened Japanese paper and a kento system of registration to set the paper down each time in the right spot.



 
 
Here's the first 4 prints I made from this block.
Number 1/8 on Okawara handmade-- a paper that I got originally from Hiromi paper in LA--but I've added additional dosa (sizing) to make it work for water based prints.  This is a Thai kozo-blend paper that is a little off white in color.  Encouraged I tried 3 more copies on different kinds of paper. These 3 all look different but this is due more to the different papers than changes in colors as these were each printed using the same pigments and similar color applications. The differing weights and fibers made for very different prints.

These three copies were all built up or printed semi-simultaneously. A few color layers on one, then I'd switch to a new sheet and built up the colors by adding pigment multiple times to each area.  There are at least 15 color applications to each of these prints.

#2/8 is on a very heavy, uneven-surface Fabriano watercolor paper. It was fairly heavily sized and was very difficult to print with a baren and only a little easier with a small doorknob. The "moth eaten" appearance is due to the uneven surface and lack of adequate pressure.

 No. 3/8 is on Gampi Torinoko, a beautiful handmade gampi paper no longer made but once available from McClains. This paper also has added size/dosa.

Detail of the copy on Gampi Torinoko, #3/8.

 It's a natural color paper and really lovely. It accentuated the embossing of the white lines and has a softer feel to the colors.

4/8, above, is on Hosho Professional, another paper from Awagami--(100% cellulose but with added sizing).
This one was done more loosely and with wetter pigment to better approximate a watercolor painting.
Unfortunately, the paper slipped during one color application (See the dark background parts for double printing) and there was a section that got muddied up by too many color layers so this is probably a reject.

I'll have another try before I retire this block. I want to try printing on DRY paper--using the traditional method--and also on unsized paper. Arches cover is supposed to be good, but I'll use one of my unsized or weakly sized Japanese papers to see how they print with this method.

.

Sweet Tea. White-line.

 It's a rainy day today. While hurricanes are pounding my old hometown, there are storms here too with dark skies, thunder and lightning and rain. The dog is shaking under the stairs and the kids are reading or doing homework.
Rainy days are good for printing but I wasn't up for anything grandiose.  So I decided to try another quick white-line print.

 It's from a rapid doodle of a few days ago that I quickly cut yesterday afternoon.
And today I snuck back into the studio to see how it would print.
The light one is on some odd Japanese Masa to which I added a little extra size.
The dark one, which sadly got an ink blotch when I wasn't paying attention, is on Italian etching paper.

In honor of my southern upbringing, and the end of the hot days of summer,  I offer this quirky pitcher of Sweet Tea. Anyone from the American South will know what this is. You can never guess how sweet it is by just looking but it's almost always too sweet.

This is on etching paper and is a little too dark and has a yellow splotch.

Both were printed on damp paper, with tube watercolors and with a baren.
 

Oats

It's fast becoming Summer and the grass is growing faster than I can even think about cutting it.
In the fields are witchgrass, rye, wheat, and many others but the showiest in mid-May are the individual plants or stands or fields of oats (avena sativa).

 I've enjoyed listening to the birds and watching the young immature flowers/seeds swing and dangle in the breeze--akin to watching the flickering of a fire or the lapping of the waves. Rhythmic and predictable; so barely but infinitely variable.

I've been cutting them and bringing them in and I have carafes and jam jars, water glasses and vases full of stems and stalks.
Green dangling jewels like earrings or bangles or dry, spiny, bearded, spring-loaded seed heads or the flags they leave behind--"we're off, we're off" for the wind to rustle.

 Here are a few oat-inspired etagami.
The Japanese reads, "they invented dance"--my way of acknowledging the seeming joyful swaying and and almost synchronous ballet of fields of little green ballerinas.
Above, instead is a drypoint print--the sprig of green, immature oats drawn and then incised with a sharp point onto a flattened, recycled, Tetrapak container, and printed with a small press.

Chestnuts. Etagami to Woodblock: LAILAC DEMO

I cut the blocks for this woodblock print just in time for my little demo for the LAILAC Japanese festival in Scandicci/Florence this weekend.  I had just one hour for my demo both Saturday and Sunday so there really wasn't much time but I think it went well, although I was talking too fast, forgetting to use the microphone,  and printing too so I didn't get to take any photos during my talk (although I took a bunch of the Etagami section).  I had a good crowd, interested and attentive but lacked a video feed so it was hard for those in back to see what I was doing.

I did manage to do a brief oral explanation of moku hanga and the history of Japanese woodblock and Ukiyo-e, describing the big difference between Western and Japanese woodblock techniques with an emphasis on why I use this method for my own work and then quickly moved to the demo part which is why I was there.

Since a big part of the Japanese festival is the Etagami corner (20 Japanese members of the Etagami society came over and were assisting at the tables showing people how to do etagami), I chose to do one of the Fall postcards I made last year, reworking it as a woodblock print.

I had time just to print the keyblock and text and one-two of the color blocks (I had carved 7) so I ended up with about 10 partially printed pieces of washi.
So now that the fair is over, I retreated to my studio and finished these proofs before the paper could go bad.

The original sumi and watercolor etagami postcard.

Simple version; no text and just one of the background blocks.

Text block added (it also has additional chestnut drawing details).

An additional background color block added.

Here are three of the printed variants. These are all on Shin Hosho (from Woodlike Matsumura in Japan and via Intaglio Printmakers in the UK).
One is without the carved text block (which also had some additional drawing lines)
One is with a faint yellow background/beta ban block.
And one is with a supplementary background green block that added a little more depth and was in keeping with the original watercolor washes.

 The hardest part was the small purple/blue spot on the upright chestnut. It meant a round bokashi on one block with blue, and the careful removal of pigment in the same area on another block and there is quite a bit of variability to how they came out.

I'm pretty happy with this. It's pretty close to the original Sumi and watercolor drawing that was the inspiration and a good printing exercise.  I'm not sure which I like better, the one with or without the text. The former retains better the idea of a watercolor still life while the one with text is still an etagami or "Word Picture".   The text reads, "AUTUMN TREASURE" and is a accurate description about how we feel about finding local chestnuts in the woods.

Etaga-ME!

"I look a little like this"

My etagami penpal, Yasuko Izumiya, will be coming to Florence for the 17th LAILAC Japanese Festival next month and although we have been exchanging these sumi ink and watercolor drawings for over two years, we've never met in person. The Japanese Etagami Society has many members and last year's group and the publicity they received in their monthly journal (with photos of the fair, the etagami tables, the paintings they did of Florence) has stirred up much interest and I'm told that this year there is a waiting list of those who wanted to come......Most are in their 70's and 80's, so it's quite a stretch to imagine flying from Japan to Italy, touring the country a bit, spending two full days at the Fair, hosting the Etagami tables and helping young and old alike learn how to make etagami, jet-lag and all.

I will be demonstrating moku hanga prints again this year and I've also volunteered to help out with the etagami section if there's need.
I'm thrilled I get to meet my Etagami-pal after sharing  drawings of flowers, bugs and everyday objects with her for almost 2 years.

As we've never met, and there will be a big crowd, I'm sending her these cards to help her pick me out from the others.

Primroses/Primule-March Etagami.

"Spring primroses say, "Hello, Hello".

A little over a year ago we went to the mountains in the Appenines near Genoa.
It was late spring and very damp and there were wild strawberries in bloom (but no fruit) and lots of low yellow primroses flowering.

I dug up a few of each and potted them when I got home.
It's now a year later and the primroses, despite almost complete neglect, are in full bloom.
They are a pale yellow and almost glow in the dark in the early morning and late evening when everything else is dull gray and brown.
Since they are such a local symbol of early spring and seem to me so cheerful and optimistic.
So I chose my vase of transplanted mountain yellow primroses as the subject for my March etagami.

Beetle trouble

Capnodis cariosa, Flat-head, Mediterranean Borer Beetle

This thing, or one of his relatives showed up for the first time last Fall. It had just finished munching all of the new flower/leaf buds of a small plum tree that we had just planted.

This is a borer beetle and while it's the grub that does the most damage (and is really, really nasty to look at),  I'd never seen an adult on the property.....and once I saw one, and started looking around...there were dozens. On all of the plums and many of the pears and as they strip off all of the cambium and new bark of the new shoots skeletonizing the newer growth and branches.....and on smallish trees that means no flowers and no fruit.
So I squashed him.
Sorry, I know that that's probably not cool or morally sound in the "BIG" picture but on our little farm I won't use insecticides on my organic fruit trees but I'm not above basic control methods (hunt and eliminate) when the balance tips too far in favor of the lower orders. (If we still had chickens, they'd help keep them in check).

"Beetle Trouble" Sumi ink and watercolor etagami
 on Japanese paper.

This is my September Etagami for my Japanese Etagami exchange. You can see the kind of damage they do in the eroded tip of the branch.

It reads, "Beetle Trouble" in Japanese.

May Etagami

While I may not have made the cover,  my first etagami for the Italian/Japanese Etagami exchange made it into the May 2014 edition of Etagami monthly.

That's my red radicchio on the left. Pg. 4.

This is the cover of the May Etagami news magazine.

I don't think it's due to the incredible beauty or calligraphy of my work, but instead due to the fact as this is the first Etagami exchange organized by that association outside of Japan, and this is Florence, it made interesting news for their readers. There was a multi-page article about Florence, and the exchange. I think there are about 30 Italians participating.

The etagami that I sent to Japan this month was taken from a recent photograph of a grape vine budding out. In the wine-making world, this represents the beginning of the growing cycle and the bud will soon be a long vine studded with grapes.  The accompanying text reads, "Some calendars have different beginnings...".

Some Calendars have different beginnings. 3"x5" sumi and watercolor on Japanese kozo paper.

I also did another, this time in English; and sent it off as a postcard to a gardener and friend in Santa Cruz.

And today I stopped by the LAILAC Japanese cultural center to pick up my just-arrived card from from my etagami/penpal in Japan; It portrays what I think must be a blue clematis--called Tessen in Japanese.

I think I can now add to my Curriculum vitae that my work has been published in
"International Art Journals".......

Etagami

"Winter Vegetable; Indoor color when flowers are few" 4"x6" watercolor and sumi on Washi.

I joined the local Japanese cultural association; LAILAC which aims to introduce and foster an understanding of Japanese arts and culture to Italians. There was a large fair in December with demonstrations of dance, ikebana, drumming, cooking, calligraphy and a special section set up to show people the art of ETAGAMI; simple drawings of everyday life, usually coupled with a short phrase or comment that are shared with other--usually through the mail.
They are painted on weakly-sized washi using a brush held vertically from the end so perfect control is impossible and the inevitable bleed of some of the ink and color into the paper are part of the appeal.
So, with instruction, anyone who wanted to participate was allowed to draw a quick sketch with sumi and paint in colors using watercolors.  I left mine with the hosts but suscribed to their ETAGAMI exchange, which would pair me up--like a pen-pal--with a Japanese participant to exchange monthly Etagami. They are handling the actual bulk mailings and the only requirements were that the simple phrase to accompany the drawing be written in JAPANESE.

Here's the Etagami I received yesterday from Japan.

I can't read it and haven't had time to have it translated but it is a cheery orange or mandarin.















In keeping with the Season (and because I wasn't ready to deal with another horse) I went to the photo I took a few weeks ago of one of the Red chicories that are so loved here in the Winter.

The image at the top was the Etagami I made to send to Japan. It was my 3rd try (controlling the bleed wasn't easy....) and writing the Japanese using the brush too was as awkward as it must look from my calligraphy.
Here too is the preparatory sketch I did in my sketchbook with the English version of what I hope I wrote in Japanese (Thanks to Googletranslate I was able to play with different phrasings to get something I could write.).

I love watercolors and will be doing more of these. Hopefully I'll get more skilled.
If you Google: ETAGAMI and look at some of the examples,  there are some that are really phenomenal.

Pinwheel #2

5"x7" mixed-media: woodblock, watercolor and pen-and-ink

I printed and pasted down four of the little grid prints that are the basis of this small painting/drawing and while I was waiting for them to dry,  I hand-colored this copy that was printed on etching paper.

This is getting closer to what I have in mind.
A little too "Mondrian-esque" but I'll be printing with dirtier colors and the printed inks always look different  (besides he NEVER used diagonals or browns.......it was a kind of dogma thing.......to which I am not constrained.).

Hope to carve and print in the next 1-2 days as this is meant to be a stimulus and not a diversion.

Pinwheel

Pinwheel, 5"x7" mixed media (woodblock, pen and ink, watercolor)

I've had a backlog of print ideas for some time but I am still not yet at the "ready to carve" or print stage with any of them. But I've been itching to get back into the studio and just make some marks.
I came back from the US with a box of 4" x 6" shina blocks and I've decided to try and use them to make some quick and simple prints based on simple geometric shapes and objects.
The goal is to try to approach the rapidly drawn pen line of my sketches and later fill them in with some broad color blocks.
Here is the proof of my hastily drawn and quickly carved trial block.
I printed the uncarved back of the block in pale yellow, then the front in dilute sumi ink on Japanese paper.

Then just to get the colors flowing, I took one of the proofs on Magnani incisioni etching paper and added some pen and ink, and some watercolors.........
Not really where I wanted this to go but I'm moving forward again and that was the point.
I will carve some color sections and reprint a few of these on good paper....just to see how loose and
"sketchy" I can keep this. Meanwhile, I'm fleshing out what will be my next "real" print and hope to have a finished drawing ready for wood soon.

Rock,Paper,Scissors.

30 years ago, during an undergraduate Watercolor class, we had the assignment of doing 100 drawings of a common object.
I chose a pair of scissors.
The limitations were to do all the drawings in no more than 3 sittings....
So that one had to do at least 33 drawings in a session.....
I'll leave the motivations and results of this to the imagination but of the 100 drawings I produced, I saved about 4-5 that I still have tucked away in a drawing portfolio.

This was always one of my favorites.
Not because of the execution...it's crude and distorted and badly painted, and smudged.
But it epitomizes the dry, droll sense of humor I sort of prefer.



There's a narrative.
There's an art-historical reference (if you call Dogs Playing Cards part of Art History)
There's a sort of odd, nonsensical vantage point and perspective (bad drawing)

Anyway.
This is the preamble.
For a few reasons, I've no new work coming out any time soon despite a backlog of ideas and works that I have sort-of started but need a block of uninterupted time to bring to completion.

So I'll be posting and discussing a little bit about materials that I use for the Moku Hanga Prints i've been making for the last 7-8 years.

Papers, pigments, brushes, etc.

What I use and why and where I obtain them.

More to come.

Happy Winter Solstice.
Glad the World didn't end.
I had stocked up on Synthroid, shoe laces and tinned sardines just in case.

--Andrew.

Filler

As my big Maple branch/seed/print is taking a long time, I need to take frequent breaks or I'll lose interest.

These are two watercolor doodles done on my badly-sized Japanese paper (and indeed they were unevenly sized and both resisted and sucked up the watercolor rather haphazardly). (I have a big stack of reject paper...from my sizing experiments.)

Nervous Energy-- 5"x7" watercolor on Japanese paper

Counting the Days--5"x7" watercolor and mica on Japanese paper

No real theme just shapes, colors, lines and a bit of leftover mica powder mixed into the paint.