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There's an art-historical reference (if you call Dogs Playing Cards part of Art History)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.

Crumbs, size, paper and glue

I carved and printed a circular bokashi/shading to each donut during the printing phase as one of the impressions of my donut print.

This is what lies under the marble dust"powdered sugar".
And here's the block it printed from:

Then, another block, fairly similar but with the donut shapes just slightly smaller was used to print a mixture of gum arabic and paste transferring the glue lightly with the baren to the surface of the paper.
I then sifted (I used a very fine tea seive) very finely ground marble dust (used for gesso) onto the damp glue and then tapped it off.
Despite being almost talc-like in consistency it fell in smallish granules (I think due to electrostatic charges) but gave pretty close to the effect I wanted.
(I had also tried talc and rabbit skin glue as alternatives). The talc worked great but the print smelled like a beauty parlor and while Marble dust is inert and safe to work with the talc isn't really good to breathe so I didn't want to be dusting it on 20-30 prints.).
I wasn't too sure how permanent my "sugar" printing would be so I made sure there was a good layer of color underneath in case the sugar falls off (It's pretty heavy and seems to like to shed of rub off if you touch it). But there's a donut underneath just in case.

Although it might have been more coherent to print these sketches first, I wanted to include some of the preparatory drawings that I used to create this print.
I can't remember if it was from a dream, or just something I jotted in while on the phone or doing something else but this print started off as a sketch pretty much like these later ones, done to try to fit the paper size restrictions for the exchange I was participating in.
It went through lots of iterations and originally would have been a broader/bigger format. However, the Baren Forum exchange #54 for which this was my entry had a defined size: Hosoban,
which would have traditionally come from a half sheet; torn again into vertical thirds giving a pronounced vertical/horizontal axis at 5.7" x 13".



Meanwhile, while back in the US I ordered some new papers to try out hoping to find some papers to bring back to Italy.
The paper I hoped to use, Kizuki Kozo from the Japanese Paper Place in Toronto, they recommended as one of their favorite already-sized papers for moku hanga.
It's a lovely paper but thinner than I had hoped (40g/m2) and felt pretty soft, with some fibers already visibly protruding on the surface.
And indeed, it proved to be a little too soft and lightly sized for my purposes as on the first 1-2 impressions the paper seemed to stick to the block/get surface abrasions and the finished proofs were a little too matte and soft in color (a sign of not enough size).
So just after starting my actual print run I actually abandoned the 26 sheets I had cut of this paper and had to cut down new paper made up of what I had on hand in Italy.
( I had two full sheets of Kihada--a heavy mulberry/pulp paper from Japan (Woodlike Matsumura), a few small pieces of Echizen Kozo (McClains), and some midweight kozo/pulp paper whose name had fallen off last year.).
I cut these down, dampened them and these became the final prints--
(with the addition of 4-5 of the original kizuki kozo that I kept printing on for reference).

Meanwhile, I still have the 26 pieces of Kizuki Kozo that I had started to print on--the first yellow background bokashi got printed before I pulled them out of the stack... so I decided I will have another go in the future but with additional size.

Just before heading back to the US this week, I mixed up a batch of winter size and once they were dry I re-sized them with a mixture of 5g alum/17g glue to 1L water. (It might be too strong as there is some size already on this paper and they ended up a little too "shiny").

These have since been dried; and put aside to settle/age. They'll be ready to print on when I head back to Florence in January.

I hope to have a go at a variant printing:
I'd like to cut another block; I still want to see what that wavy oak block from my first post/idea will print as a background and I think I'd like to play with a blue/gray background and splotches to make it a little more subtle.
So stay tuned for a second state.

Revenge of the Sugar Donuts

They came--
Not two-by-two but in sixes and dozens.


Almost all human cultures have not only a complex cosmology of the origins of Man and the World but they almost ALL have some version of a fried tasty cake or dumpling.
I decided that enough artists have fully explored the nature of Myth, Symbol and the mystical origins of Spirit and Culture but few have adequately explored the elaborate ramifications and layers that involve millennia of deep-fat frying.


Revenge of the Sugar Donuts(detail)
moku hanga, Japanese polychrome woodblock print
5.7" X 13"
printed from 5 blocks with watercolor pigment and marble dust.
E.V. 22

This print comes from one of the many funny drawings doodled into the margins of my sketchbooks. No deep meaning.
Not unless you want to dig a little bit.

Printing Spatter

Proofing my cherry wood spatter block. Changes in plans meant that I had to throw all of my blocks, tools, cut paper and barens/and brushes into a suitcase as I had to change continents all of a sudden. I'd hoped to wrap up this "simple" print before leaving but I had to leave a week early and the week I'd left for printing didn't happen. Sadly, my suitcase was way overweight (art supplies, Halloween candy and tortillas) so I had to jettison the oak block that started this whole thing...so I'll have to make due with some careful printing to get some of the depth and drama I was after. Work commitments will keep me in Santa Cruz, until December but for a few weeks, I'm back in Italy and trying to finish up an art project that is due Nov. 1. This will be a portion of one of the blocks that will make up an exchange print for Baren Forum's exchange # 54. It's a friendly exchange of works by relief printmakers that happens 4 times a year. Sometimes there's a theme/sometimes a size/sometimes a "technique challenge". No theme this time; the only restrictions are the size: (5.7" x 13") and a technique...moku hanga--all the participants this time around have to use the Japanese woodblock printing method (wood blocks, Japanese paper, brushed-on water-based inks and printing with a baren (or wooden spoon). Not sure I'll make the deadline as if I have to ship the prints from here they'll take longer but I'm back on track after the jet lag wore off and my cold is finally waning. This block printed just fine, the graininess is from the fact that it's on etching paper and not my good Japanese paper. I'm proofing the other blocks today. I'll be printing on a new paper, Kizuki Kozo from the Japanese Paper Place in Ontario, Canada. A bit risky trying a new paper on a moku-hanga print, but I like surprises; it might be too soft, too lightly-sized, too light, too anything...If I'm lucky, I should be able to adjust the final print to all of these variables.... I hope to start printing tomorrow if no new hurdles present themselves.

Carving Spatter

Well a lazy Saturday spent mostly at home. I have the day off, and a bit of a cold, so I stayed in most of the day and worked away at the splotches I wanted to try and carve for the background block. Here's a close up of the cherry block before I spent the day pecking away. I'm using the sharp pointed Toh chisel to outline the shapes. Then I use a couple of bull-nose or Aisuki chisels to clear away everything else. The toh make a kind of stop-cut that allows me to clear right to the edge. Hope to finish it tonight or tomorrow. The other 1-2 blocks are soft Shina plywood and should go fast.

Spatter

Work on this little print progresses slowly. I have two blocks carved but I think I'll need a little more drama than the oak grain from my last post might provide once I get to printing so I decided to try a different approach. I mixed a little sumi with a little water and with a big, old housepainting brush I splashed and spattered the ink on several pieces of cardboard and paper. Once I was happy with the variety of splashes, drops, drips and scatter, I let it dry then traced it onto .03mm acetate using a pen with a fine nib. Then I transferred it onto the block using carbon/transfer paper using a sharpened pencil. This is going onto a cherry block as I want to retain some of the detail of the little droplets. I started carving this tonight and it is going slowly. I need to sharpen my tools since the hardness of the wood I can't really influence. But sharper gouges and aisuki chisels will make things much easier. I'll try to post a photo tomorrow of the block. I am trying however to keep the subject a mystery until I finish the print. So the photos will be cropped oddly to prevent guessing.

Oak and Drama

It's been a long time since I've gotten any work done. But sometimes, the best way to begin is just to start working. Here I am; sanding block and wood board on my lap. I do this by hand; it's slow and meditative and gets me to think about the wood and begin to feel about where I want to go. I've got a preliminary sketch worked out but this time, instead of a detailed finished drawing to paste down; I'm going to be using a tracing on acetate and carbon paper to transfer the shapes to the blocks. While most of the blocks will be Shina--a Japanese linden plywood, I wanted one block that would add some drama. This is a white oak board; purchased today at the lumberyard and will be used to print the background. I've begun sanding it to bring out the wavy grain that should show prominently in the finished print....(or that's the idea....). More to come.