Baren

This is my primary printing press.
A Murasaki, Medium Baren made in Japan of braided hard nylon cord.
It is covered with a bamboo skin/leaf which, over time and with use will crack and wear out.
I need to do some serious printing this week and the small concentric circular holes that were forming in the cover meant it was time to be replaced.
The top photo shows the old cover removed from the baren itself.

The bottom 2 photos show my fairly mediocre attempt to replace it.
This is my second try ever. The first has lasted about 6 months, was serviceable if unevenly tied but seemed to work just fine.
I did manage to get it on and tied tight enough; but there is a tiny rip in the top,
that will require me to replace it again fairly soon--the usual friction of regular printing will open/enlarge it. I may get through this print run as is, but if seems to be enlarging, it's more likely I'll have to do it all over.

Still, I have four sheets of paper in a damp pack and tomorrow I hope to proof the
Kimono print. I have four blocks carved and want to see how it looks before I carve another. This baren cover should hold out at least that long.

Shina Kimono

Well, I meant to include this photo in the last post but didn't have my camera and the sketch was too big for my scanner. This is about a 11" X 16" board of Shina Plywood (a kind of Japanese Linden or Basswood). I have three of these for a total of six plates.

This is the almost finished keyblock for my effort for the Japan Relief print--if I can get it done in time.
There's still to fix a few slips/lost lines and I have to carve the 4-5 color blocks that should go with this but this should be the bulk of the carving work.

I'll be quiet for a while as I do need to work and I still have some details not quite worked out.

I doubt this will offend anybody who isn't already aghast at what I was thinking before.
The real fear now is that it won't be interesting.

More rejects

I've been drawing thumbnail and finished sketches and throwing them out as fast as I produce them. Most of the ideas haven't been too bad; it's just that they've been either too direct and blunt or just not nuanced enough to be interesting.
I received a fair number of emails and private remarks about my last post and ultimately decided to listen to what seemed like good advice from others closer than I am to Japan.

My favorite of the rejects was this:

I have always loved Japanese folding screens and really liked the idea of the layers that would involve doing a woodblock print depicting one.
I was interested in the the stillness of the usually hand-painted nature scenes but this would have had this big, rolling wave instead of the usual seasonal landscape. I got as far as this finished watercolor sketch (lots of other drawings with more or less insistent waves on them) but ditched it as just too insensitive to do at this time with so many people dead and missing.

My other ideas involved carving and printing this seismogram reading taken off the coast of Sendai and recording the enormous earthquake near its epicenter. I had hoped to work it in as part of a print but found it didn't add much beside a macabre sense of tragedy and didn't like the drawings I had done that included it.

Ultimately, I just started carving.
The sketch I chose does involve a kimono, cherry blossoms,
water, a gentle reminder of the the passage of time and the fragility of life and a probably too-subtle nod to unstable atoms and electrons.
But it's not obvious and risks being if anything too banal.
Hope to finish carving the keyblock tomorrow as good or bad, it will be a crunch to get it done on time.

Inspired by Japan--Sketches

The Baren, an internet-based, international group of woodblock artists is sponsoring a benefit exchange of prints to benefit the Aid efforts following Japan's recent devastating earthquake, Tsunami and radiation disaster.
It is a themed exchange, titled "inspired by Japan" and the artists who have volunteered will print 31 copies to be exhibited and then, sold with all proceeds to benefit relief efforts.

My first idea was to depict a "Mofuku", the all black, mourning kimono of Japanese funeral rites. I had hoped to print a dark blue ground-to represent the water and the shadow cast of the kimono would be in the shape of the initial seismograph reading recorded off Sendai on that terrible morning.
It was to be dedicated to all those who lost their entire families and have no one left to mourn them.

But I've been a little uneasy.
I've been scouring the web and internet sites devoted to Japanese culture, Kimono styles and traditions, and specifically sites selling used and vintage kimonos to the west.
All have emphasized that the Mofuku, an all-black kimono with 5 undyed family crests is only to be worn by close relatives of the deceased and several sites
stated that they could not even show samples of Mofuku due to the sensitive nature of their use.
Since, my print would make the display of such a seemingly sensitive object not only visible but the subject and focus I have been hesitant to begin carving.

I showed some images of my sketches to my cousin's Japanese wife and she very graciously but pointedly confirmed my suspicions that while this would pose No issues to a Western audience, such a direct approach would make many Japanese uneasy. (As it did her).

So now I don't know what to do. I have several other sketches--some more or less complicated that I need to revisit and decide soon if I can make them work.
I would not normally be worried about appropriating ideas and images for my own work and purposes but in this context, a Benefit donation, it feels like I can not simply ignore such sentiment.

Kimono: Furisode/Tomesode? Sketch B
Fortunately, the traditions of kimono are fairly strict.
If the kimono doesn't have the 5 mon (crests) or has any other decoration, it is NOT considered Mofuku. But it then loses the connotations I was after about the terrible loss of life and consequent national mourning and international sadness.

Below was yesterday's sketch; done as Sami had Karate practice and I sat in the local coffeehouse with my sketchbook. Sort of a Japanese screen with an implacable wave. Perhaps a bit overdone/overwritten but it could be at least much more subtle and beautiful if printed well.

The Implacable Wave (sketch C)

Roses

The Pruner; Rose Garden, Exposition Park, L.A. 2011
My son made it into the State Science Fair and we drove to Los Angeles for two days of judging and exhibits. While he was explaining his project to the judges I went outside to explore the adjacent Rose Garden.
Exposition park has a very large formal garden planted to separate beds; one variety to each bed. So there are rectangles of white, red, yellow, mauve, purple and orange flowers. It was too hot to catch the scent unless you pushed your nose deep into the blossoms.
As I waited outside on a shaded bench surrounded by hundreds of roses and a fountain
and the Beaux-Arts Style architecture; I pulled out my always-handy but rarely-used field sketchbook and colors.
It was early morning and there were workers out pruning and watering.
This man was heavily built and had a baseball cap, slate blue outfit and rust colored apron and white work gloves as he went about the beds deadheading and pruning out the still in FULL bloom May blossoming.

This is somewhat compressed and made up. I did sketch the general layout but as I filled in the color I sort of abandoned the careful layout if favor of flowing greens and spots of color.

It seemed to be favorite walking spot of elderly Korean women with colored umbrellas (for shade--it was 90F degrees yesterday) and big sneakers and white cotton gloves.
They all stopped to look over my shoulder but were too polite to say anything.
I like the riot of colors even if I had wanted the man to be lost in a sea of flowers but he ended up being the focus and subject.

Not the Easter Bunny

Proofing continues.

I managed to print 3-4 color variants of my still-unfinished, Year of the Rabbit card.
I have the yellow block pretty much squared in and registration was satisfactory, if not perfect. I need to work on the ring over the Right eye and there was some unwanted embossing of the paper where I hadn't cleared the block well enough.

There is still to trim back or shim the red block--the red jewel is a bit out of registration...and there is a little general clean up to do as well on the rabbit block and the keyblock.

But I still think I have to play with the colors a bit and I'd like the gold rings to be a bit more visible...I may try some metallic ink. I touched in some gold gouache with a small paintbrush and I liked the effect but would prefer to print it.
HOPE to try printing later this week.....

Short Cuts and Long Cuts

Sometimes trying to cut corners just makes the path a whole lot longer.

I ordered paper for my last print directly from Japan and when I saw that they also offered blocks of small, postcard paper in 4" X 6", 50-sheet blocks I thought it was a great idea.
I'm working on a postcard sized print for the Year of the Rabbit.
So I ordered 2 packs or 100 postcards. "Wow, these are already cut to size",
"think of all the time I'll save.....".

Then, I needed blocks. I ordered blocks too at 4" x 6" size. Since the paper is already pretty small, I'll print right to the edges so I don't waste any paper.
"think of the money I'll save on smaller blocks and I won't waste any wood or paper scraps....."
Usually I carve my registration system into each block using the traditional kento system of corner and edge stops that are part of each woodblock.

This is a traditional kento system of registration:Here is the corner stop or "kagi kento"

The corner kento is carved in a lower corner of the block and the corner of the damp paper would normally seat into this to line up each time it was printed. Another straight edge is carved to catch the lower edge of the paper; this is instead the line stop or lower edge stop called the hikitsuke kento.

Together, the pair of these carved niches allow very precise registration of multiple colors and multiple impressions. You can place the paper down EXACTLY where you want it using this system.

But I had decided not to use this system....but to use a jig, a floating L-shaped accessory that would carry the corner kento and registration marks and would be the same for each block. This way I wouldn't have to carve the kentos for each block but could use just ONE for all of them.....

SO, I had to make a little jig, that would hold the blocks still and allow me to lay the paper down evenly. But the kind of jig that allows me to place a piece of damp paper directly down on a block of the same size just isn't accurate enough for the print I'm planning so, I had to abandon the first jig, build another, I go out and cut paper 5" X 7" so I'll have enough border to work with.

But, as my blocks came from two different sources and are different heights, the slight difference in height meant the thinner block was harder to control in the jig and ended up printing off-register from the rest which I figured out with the first full-color proofs when my yellow color printed way off. I've spent the last two days trying to fix it.

Today I finally broke down and made a SECOND jig for the yellow color, wrong-sized, off-register block.

I printed a black copy from my key block using Jig 1 on dry paper.
Then, using a small blade, I cut out the small parts that will print off my yellow block. Then using the new jig, I placed the yellow block in it, and placing the printed copy on top and peeking through the holes, I could line up the cut out with the corresponding raised portions of the carved block and the edges of the paper will now demarcate where to place my new registration marks for the yellow block.
I used blue painter's tape instead of cutting into the foam board I used so I can move them if necessary after proofing.

Tomorrow I hope to reprint a color proof to see if they now all line up.
But already I know I'd have saved a ton of labor and been done already if I'd just taken the "long way",
planning on using paper a bit bigger, carving blocks on boards a bit bigger too, and trimming down to size afterwards just accepting that there will be some "waste" paper and wood but a huge savings in labor, time, energy and precision.