Bloodlust

You'll have to make what you will of this little thing.
The words I repeat often, sottovoce, and are the closest thing to a mantra that comes out of my mouth, usually just before or sometimes after.
But I haven't succeeded.
and I haven't been able to achieve any sort of state of enlightenment.
Not yet.

I think of Kasturba
and wonder how she felt about the Mahatma's vow of chastity.
Was she tired of it all, and relieved to be done with all that.
Or was she angry and resentful, despite the higher calling and important things in the world that needed doing outside.

But then I think of Bukowski, who couldn't be bothered with any of that,
and a bug on the wall while he's sitting on the pot writing poetry.
And we know how that ends.

"Desire", 3'x6" original wood engraving with hand set type and egg tempera.

Burden--Sins of omission

For "Print Day in May" (not sure what it is other than an excuse to skip other priorities to go work in the studio) I did just that.
I put aside all the pressing outdoor and indoor things and spent all morning working in the print shop.

I had nothing really planned but I have a bunch of little doodles and sketches that I looked through to find an idea that I wanted to explore.  I sketched with pencil a few curving lines onto a 4" x 6" Shina block and then went over them with a sharpie so they'd remain after I printed and washed off the block between colors.  This is not how I usually work: I usually start from a finished drawing that I transfer to the block and faithfully carve.  But I had just a few hours so just started in.

First pass was a gray Beta-Ban. A simple gray wash over the entire block. I used a lot of paste so the brush marks show.

Then I carved the block and printed a red band at the bottom with a bokashi to keep from printing a hard edge. (See top photo for the block state after this printing).   I carved away the red stripe at the bottom and printed the remaining shapes with a leftover brown I'd mixed from Pthalo Blue, Magenta and Hansa Yellow. This was printed twice with more baren pressure towards the bottom creating a gradation in the graininess with smoother color where the pressure was stronger.

Then a Black bokashi was printed to the top circle shape with some care to make sure that there was some bleed onto the brown curving shape just below.
Then a Blue bokashi was printed over the bottom "Leg" shape.

This is my third little print in a series based on rather random lines or scribbles that originate as abstract or nonrepresentational images but that then suggest a subject as my mind either subconsciously or deliberately push them towards a direction that becomes a subject.
(My "pinwheel" and "fulcrum" prints are the other two).

I've been thinking about recent World events and feeling ever more aware of the human and moral implications of inaction.  There is a concept that shows up several times in Bible (and elsewhere) about the sin of omission. That is, the wrong we commit individually by not acting to correct or prevent a wrong when it was in our power to do so.  Perhaps it's due, in part, to a paralysis that comes from the daily barrage in the news of unthinkable carnage and evil that is still far away.  But there are plenty of injustices big and small nearer to home  My little print is about the discomfort and personal guilt I feel for remaining inactive and about the illusion that we remain unaffected even if we do nothing.


Burden, moku hanga woodblock print.
Ed. 5;  5 1/2" X 7  1/2 "

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.

Blood Dreams

Blood Dreams, Monoprint; 13" X 18"

Place your fingers to your lover's wrist or against your own neck and feel the pulse against your skin and know that in this moment, at least, you are alive.

This is another old work--one of my first forays into monoprints from 1997 in Santa Fe at an intensive 5-day monoprint workshop. I was really happy with this print but the really nice one--a beautiful blood-dark maroon ground--(this was the reworked ghost print) vanished out of the drying racks on the last day--so my first "collector" remains unknown.

I hope to revisit this with woodblock soon. I'd like to change the size and composition a bit and am curious to see how it would turn out in Moku Hanga.

Stain 3

Well, work continues....

I printed 25 onto Nishinouchi, an off-white mulberry paper and the blue didn't print quite grey enough and I think my earlier proof on white paper came out better. I'll take a little pause. Let these dry and decide whether to add another color or pass on the tie to deepen the color or just print a second batch in a different color scheme on white paper. I pulled this out of the batch as I plan on gluing one down face up on a hardwood block, carving the tie again and polishing the other copies to make the tie shiny and silky looking.

They are a bit less yellow than this appears on my monitor.

Almost there

Well, while I didn't get into the studio as much as I'd have liked--I managed to get these proofs done today and I'm pretty happy. I carved all day Sunday. Trimmed paper and printed these color proofs today. There is still some tidying up to do. The thin tie stripes need to be cut back a bit at the bottom to match the color tie block but we are almost there.
There will still be some surprise. It would be too boring for me to know exactly where this will end up--I'll be printing on Nishinouchi, an warm, off-white, slightly newsprinty paper that will change the colors somewhat. And I won't really decide until I'm sitting down with the bowls and colors in front of me which one I'll do. But I've only cut 25 pieces of paper so there will probably be another run and that will allow another color.
The biggest challenge still is the blood spot. It has three colors/impressions and it's still not right.

Stains and colors

I printed some sample proofs from my fresh keyblock.
The original idea was a simple black and white line drawing with the red blood stain on the white shirt. (I thought of carving different color stains --coffee, blood, etc but that seemed pushing it a bit too far).
But with some proofs on hand I decided to color some in with watercolor.
The one on the bottom R is my favorite;it would be sort of a halftone, bluegray--all the colors would be shades of grey except for the stain; the others are as can be seen above--I like the yellow tie more than the blue one.
The risk is that the subject--the blood spot--might be lost if too much energy and interest is directed at the necktie and colors.

The red stain will be cut off the key block and recarved so it will be much more noticeable. I'm also planning on adding a bit of alcohol to the color to make it seep a bit.

Any favorites/comments before I carve the next block?

Carving Blood

Well, I decided to step away from my big Jajim print for a little pause. I haven't done any carving since early this year and I wanted to make some chips fly.

SO I went back into my unfinished projects file and pulled out a little print that never got farther than a preparatory sketch. While brainstorming ideas for one of the Baren Forum exchanges I posted this as one of the ideas that got nixed. Several followers--well, most of them actually since I have so few--said that it was too bad as they liked the idea.
So did I. So I went back to my preparatory sketch--it was on old mat board and I looked it over--I added some type for the title and drove over to Kinko's and made a xerox to serve as my Hanshita. Glued it down that night and spent most of yesterday carving the keyblock. This morning I recut a few spot repairs I made on some slips. It looks mostly ok but it's carved pretty shallowly so printing will tell if it's deep enough.

Now I'm back into a stretch of shifts for work until next week but hope to get in to test print and see how much cleaning up I need to do on this block. And how many other blocks I'll need.