Registration woes

Well, I managed to get into the studio last week and get four impressions done. Two of the orange ground color: one lighter, the other a bit deeper and with some accentuation of pigment around the borders. The last two impressions to get the red border deep and even. I did decide to get rid of the outer blue line around the red border and adjusted that yesterday.

But it's been raining off and on, and I've been moving between my heated house (dry) and my poorly insulated shed/studio (very damp).

Since I did some proofing I left my "tiger stripes" birch block in the shed and this morning, with the day off I got all set to finish printing.

Pulled the paper out of the freezer (it's damp too and will go moldy if it sits out); mixed my color; got up early and made some rice paste. Had a cup of coffee and went out to start. But once I pulled a bunch of throwaway pulls on crap paper I used my first proof on white paper.

Hmmm. Seems to be off register. Must be just a bad drop. So I pulled another.
NOPE. Something's way off. Could be the paper moisture's off; it gets bigger and smaller as it's dampness changes. So I pulled quickly two pulls off two different blocks; (if its the paper, they'll line up now; if it doesn't line up it means the block has expanded.) They don't line up.
That means it's the block. There's a quarter inch of difference between the keyblock and color block/orange carpet. They line up perfectly at the bottom but are off by 1/4 inch at the top. The small amount of misregistration from the sides is more fixable; I just need to adjust my paper placement and that will line up just fine but the end to end problem is going to be a problem.

The birch block has absorbed moisture and is now expanded from when I printed the hanshitas--the color templates the other blocks were carved from-- so it is now "bigger" than it needs to be. And since I'm printing it last onto paper that has already been printed with the two other blocks I can't really start over without throwing away 65 prints and quite a bit of work.

Now what? I'll try bringing in the keyblock into the dry house to dry out and see if it shrinks down to size/fit. It's a different wood than the other three blocks so they are expanding at different rates. If I find the right window I should be able to pull it off but if the block needs to be somewhere between totally dry (house humidity) and totally damp (outside fog) Finding the right level will be almost impossible.
Another reason why I need a dedicated work space although, if I didn't have to actually work, I'd have printed them all in one batch and they'd have lined up just fine.

Year of the Tiger

Well, although they're not ready to go out yet...I still need to cut paper, print about 100 or so, number and sign, stuff, collate, address and send them out...But the BIG hurdle, getting a design figured out and boards cut and test printed, is done.
I've pulled some proofs to adjust the woodblocks and registration and test some colors and papers so I'm basically ready to go. Now I just need a few days of damp weather and off from work.

I celebrate the Asian New Year largely because, falling in February, it gives a chronic procrastinator like me another month or so to get yearly greeting cards out before I feel hopelessly and guiltily late. This year, I've had an idea of what I wanted to do for some time. In my days when I was gainfully employed, over paid and had few living expenses, I developed an interest in tribal carpets. I have a few small examples...nothing really valuable or museum quality--in part because they're just too expensive and in part because with two small children, two cats, and the occasional wool-eathing moth I never felt trustworthy as the custodian of anything really unique or valuable. But I've spent a lot of time visiting galleries of authentic tribal and village carpets and textiles and looking at examples online or in magazines and texts.

The amazing color and sparkle of hand-dyed wool with natural colors when done well is just remarkable. There are incredibly rich reds, and blues, yellows and violets that when applied with the right mordants by skillful dyers made for incredible colors and vibrancy...much of it lost when synthetic colors were introduced in the late 1800s. That combined with the immediacy and graphic power of some of good examples have always really appealed to me. And since I can't really own any of these true jewel-like carpets, the idea of reproducing one in woodcut has been bouncing around my brain for a while.

My thinking was that the natural pigments I use when printed on good paper have a similar sparkle and beauty that might be able to recall that of dyed wool and the quirky drawing and power of tribal carpets and textiles might be evoked with the sometimes crude marks inherent in (my) woodcuts.

So when YEAR of THE TIGER rolled around I recalled the wonderful Tiger Pelt Carpets produced in Tibet in the 1800's. Presumably originating from the priviliged use by important persons of real tiger pelts, the practice of reproducing them in wool carpets eventually developed. Some reproduce the entire tiger on a light color ground. Others recall instead the pattered stripes in realistic or very abstract ways.

Thomas Cole, who is a dealer of and writer about central asian carpets and textiles has written several articles for HALI magazine on Tibetan carpets and when I wrote him of my project and interest in finding an abstract example of such a carpet, he very generously sent me a wonderful image from one of his works. Here is a photo of the original carpet from his Hali article, "Tibetan Rugs--A Tribal Tradition" of issue 49, 1990 (republished on his website).
I thoroughly encourage you to visit his website (www.tcoletribalrugs.com) and read his articles.

As with most of my printed endeavors I have both succeeded and failed.
My version of this carpet came out reasonably well although it is so much less beautiful than the photo of the somewhat damaged original. My cherry plank that I used for the keyblock proved a little too brittle and many of the tiger stripe points broke off during clearing of the block. So some of the delicate curviness of the original stripes--many have one or two knots as an end flourish that didn't come out in my carved block--were lost in the translation to wood. Mostly, however, I didn't yet capture either the sparkly, irregular nature of the hand-dyed wool--for once I'm guilty of printing TOO evenly! And the wonderful abrash of the carpet (the horizontal lines that come from weaving with irregularly dyed wool whose color changes batch to batch and skein to skein) didn't come out. I'm still hoping in my next round of printing to evoke that better through more careless brushing out of the pigment and letting the brushstrokes show. My version is still a little too flat and "graphic novel-looking". I've printed on Gampi, E.Kozo, and white Masa and the best color so far has been on the E. Kozo.

YEAR of TIGER: Tiger Carpet, Tibet c. 1850's
Moku Hanga 4 3/4" X 11".
Cherry Keyblock: two alder blocks; one maple block; 4 colors.
AP of what should be an eventual edition of 100.

Infinite and Completely Irrational

Something infinite and completely irrational. Pi.

The small Greek letter Pi is used to represent the mathematical constant, ever changing, derived from geometry of the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter. This ratio for any circle will always equal: 3.141592653589....and goes on forever without repeating. No pattern, just randomness as you divide it out. Supercomputers are still churning it out and have it figured out to millions of digits.
My kids have memorized it out as far as they can and go around chanting the number sing-song throughout the day. Beats gum-chewing.

This is my contribution to the Baren Forum exchange # 43. I was pulled in from the waiting list. While not strictly on topic--the theme was "typography"--it does include large hand-drawn/carved numbers and the Greek letter Pi prominently displayed and hand printed.

Then there's also the formula for calculating the area of a circle...in case you forgot.

I had wanted the numbers to be visible through the ink of the "Pi" and should have printed the numbers block a bit darker or last so it would have at least embossed the damp paper. Lots of overprinting to the "Pi" as it either was too pale and lacked oomph or subject power but as it gained it by going darker I lost the effect of the numbers marching through it. At least 4 impressions and it still isn't uniform or rich enough. But the biggest defect in my mind is that I wish I'd partially drawn in the next number in the sequence so that the illusion of it continuing off page was emphasized. I'd already printed some when I figured it out and it was too late to go back.

Pi = 3.1415.....∞
Woodblock print-moku hanga (water-based) 7.25" X 11"
Baren Exchange 43: Edition of 32; 10 various-colored Artist proofs (too many but I couldn't decide).
4 blocks; 5 colors; 8 impressions.

Math lesson

Not sure why it grabbed their attention, but both my boys have become enamored with the number Pi where Pi = 3.141592653589793238......They're each working on memorizing it out as far as they can. I think Alex is up to thirty digits; Sami is at about 12 or so. They go about the house singing or chanting in turn sottovoce 3.14159265.....
For those who have forgotten, the small Greek letter π Pi is used to represent the irrational number mentioned above that is the ratio, derived from geometry, of a circle's circumference divided by its diameter. For any perfect circle, therefore, the ratio of the circumference divided by the diameter will always equal Pi. What is fascinating about this is that it is a number that goes on infinitely without repeating. (unlike 1/3 which remains .33333....forever, Pi has a nearly random sequence where all the digits are equally represented.) The solving of Pi into the millions of digits had to await the arrival of supercomputers but the problem of pi, of squaring a circle and many other mathematical proofs occupied thinkers and mathematicians from the time of the ancient civilizations until only very recently.
Not sure either why this particular diversion of theirs has also piqued my interest.
I can't memorize a new phone number anymore so pi beyond 3.14 is all I can manage but I can carve still a bit better than that so we'll count it out to at least 19 digits.
Here's the cherry block. The remains of my hanshita (paper guide) are still glued on waiting to be washed off but this will be the first of probably three blocks of my next print. I'm working a bit more loosely, this time in that I think I'll work with just 2-3 blocks and see what I can derive from them.
For those attentive readers who recall my "red shed" post, the rains have driven me from my poorly insulated and very damp workshed/studio to the kitchen table. Hope things dry out a bit so I can do some test printing.

First Day Home

My neighbors and friends had a baby this week and he came home two days ago.
I was reminded of the day Sami came home--my wife had had a C-section so it took a few days before they could both leave the hospital together. But when the time came the car was driven close to the door, I helped my wife into the house and pulled the still sleeping newborn infant in his combi car seat/car carrier into the house and set him on the brick floor.
We had two cats in those days; Grillo, a lovely, black, yellow-eyed moron of a feline and Garbanzo, a shelter-rescue, tortoise-shell; cautious, watchful and a great huntress of snakes, hares, and gophers.
I set the baby on the floor and sort of kept bringing stuff into the house and on my next trip in this was the view I had of the three of them. (although in reality, the baby was well hidden in the bundle and not visible above the rim). The two cats, who had never been interested in ANYTHING I had ever brought into the house approached the carrier like it would explode. They crept up, tails twitching, ever so slowly up to the edge to peek/sniff inside. And when something moved, they bolted. Never again to show so much interest as that first moment. ( Though they would later happily keep the baby company whenever they could).
So, in honor of the neighbor's new baby boy, I dug out this little doodle I did in the days after that encounter. Another Steinlein I'm not, so if these don't look like real cats I'm sorry; but the gesture and spirit of the moment is there.
Something new and marvelous and very different has arrived and things won't ever be the same.
Congratulations to Lisa and Karl on the birth of their new son. And thank you Sami and Alexander (and a nod to the cats who are gone) for always providing me with inspiration, content, and great joy.

First Day Home, 6" X 8" Woodblock print. One maple keyblock; Sumi on Rives lightweight paper.

Moka Genie

My minor obsession with coffee has a lot to do with having spent the last 10 years living in Italy. Being but a thinly-veiled socialist society they long ago realized that certain staples; gas, bread, chianti, and espresso prices need to be artificially controlled to maintain social order. So, in almost all the bars in Tuscany an espresso will cost .90 cents (euro) as long as you drink it standing up at the bar. (Much more if you sit down at a table where a different "tourist" price list kicks in.)
So while I was living there, I'd drop the kids off at school and head to the bar on the corner, Bar Petrarca, just outside Porta Romana in Florence and have my morning cappuccino and a brioche. Then again, picking them up at 4pm stop in at the Bar Il Poggio for an espresso. I could have made coffee at home, but the ritual of standing at the bar, chatting with the barista and quickly reading the newspaper coupled with a 15 minute break from the house chores and farmwork was important.
So, Imagine my horror to find on my yearly return to the US that a cappuccino costs $3.00-$3.50 here and an espresso--often badly made and served in a paper cup the size of a medium popcorn at the theater often $2. So, while I loved taking coffee socially in Italy, I retreated to the kitchen and the stovetop moka or french press to make coffee that I could afford and brood about the vagaries of fate.
Fortunately, Santa Cruz has some really good coffee bars and while they are still expensive at least the quality is good. And on one foggy morning as I stopped in to the local coffee place and stared at my little espresso cup with the little spoon and sugar cube wondering about my life and life's choices out of the crema and steam rose this little genie who asked me about the ebbs and tides of my life and then (this being California and a surf capital) about the current surf conditions. Then after a bit of hemming and hawing, chatting about the weather and local politics he finally got to the point and asked what I wanted out of life and said he would grant me a wish. When I asked how come all the other genies I'd ever heard about usually offered at least three wishes he shrugged his shoulders, twisted the hairs of his yellow eyebrows and said, "Hey, I'm the espresso genie" "With me there's just one strong, dense, chocolatey, concentrated wish". Then, with a sly grin he said, "If you wanted three wishes you should have gone with the double-shot, extra-tall soy, non-fat pumpkin latte."
And then, after a pause, "So", he went on, "what's it going to be?....."


"The espresso genie grants just ONE wish..."
3.5"x"9.5" Japanese polychrome wood block print
9 blocks, 13 colors, printed on Kizuki Hanga 135g/m2 Japanese Hosho paper.
open edition/40 printed to date.

Continental Drift and coffee bars.

Wow. It's been five months since my last post. I meant to write, really I did but the the tectonic plate of economic upheaval collided with the quiet but unstable plate of marital politics to force me first off the unproductive and certainly nonprofitable farm/garden and then push me out of the studio and back into the world of American health care. When the tremors stopped and all was quiet I realized what was painfully obvious. I had to go back to work.
And since as I said in my job interview, It was just 8 years since I was working in the emergency room but almost 30 since I last waited tables it was probably better that I go back to sewing up lacerations and saving lives instead of bartending or serving food again. So I'm no longer an "ex-ER physician" but a part-time physician in a local, busy urgent care. It's been stressful going back and I've spent much of the last five months reviewing books, journals, current antibiotic usage and resistance patterns, ECG reviews, etc., etc. so that I'm current and up to speed at work. So, I'm back from Italy; the kids are in school again in Santa Cruz, I'm working again 2-3 shifts a week; reading and studying in my free time and just now beginning to drift back to the studio and to some printmaking. But as I started planning my next print, a narrow long format of 3 X 9 inches, my ambivalence about going back to work was pretty clear.
Here's the first idea:
I've been spattered with all sorts of body fluids during my past life as an ER physician and putting on the shirt and tie again after so many years brought that back. I figured the long format would be perfect for the necktie and that the colorful tie would be fun to print over the white shirt. The working title was "stain". But Alexander, looking over my shoulder was very clear, "Dad, that's the most boring thing you've ever done....why don't you do something interesting! No one would ever buy that!" So, I kept on sketching. (although I still think it was a good idea).
And lots of these kept popping up...

There were all sorts of bound and wrapped bundles in different shapes and sizes. Just looking at them all made me depressed.

So I went back to the sketchbook and while at Coffeetopia, a local coffee/espresso bar I doodled this:

And then this....and this:





Keep an eye out for the little gremlin in the bottom as he's about to become the main attraction.
I liked where this was going and tomorrow I'll post the final preliminary sketch and the keyblock.