Dragons-A Good Start to 2024 (Maybe it's the battery?....)

Year of the Dragon, mokuhanga, 4.5"x6.5"

My car battery dies often enough that I keep a pair of jumper cables behind the driver's seat. So, I've been eyeing those cables and thinking how suitable they were for an etegami for some time but hadn't really figured out a suitable text to go with the drawings I contemplated painting.

But 2024 is the year of the Dragon according to the Chinese Zodiac and while I wasn't planning on making a Lunar New Year's card this year, I knew I was going to try and make it to the big Hokusai exhibit in Seattle in January, and when I started thinking about Hokusai, I couldn't help thinking of his big Sumi self-portraits as a dragon......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so,  I started drawing jumper cables, but thinking about dragons.

A) This was more calligraphic and suggesting a dragon flying.

 

 

B) This one has a distinctly R.Crumb vibe that I wasn't sure about....

 

 

But when I showed various family members and acquaintences (and a few strangers) my pages of sketches, "B" was the unanimous choice.  While I don't often yield to family taste (pressure) and I'm still not sure I made the right decision but......

 

 

Fast Enough-Year of the (water) rabbit

 

Fast Enought, 2023, 7" X 8"  E.V.-edition size is 60 on sized Japanese machine-made washi.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are you fast enough?

I wasn't planning on making a Chinese zodiac card this year.

But I started drawing rabbits, and hares, and more rabbits, until I filled a few pages of sketchbooks with running, jumping, grazing and flying "Thumpers".  I had wanted to create a busy background full of jerky marks of grass or reeds whizzing by-but the rabbits couldn't decide if they wanted to be white rabbits on a dark ground, or brown rabbits on a green field- and each time I tried to go one way, the rabbits would run back in the other direction. So my white rabbits kept getting beige fur and black ear and tail highlights, and the brown rabbit was never really dark or real enough.  

But then I remembered it was the year of the WATER rabbit.  And that sort of made the background obvious.  

When almost every other animal you meet wants to eat or hurt you,  it's no surprise that running away is the most natural response to almost any stimulus.   But the hares of our fields first do their best not to get noticed.  They blend in to the tall grass and branches, and hunker down, immobile, and are almost impossible to see.  But if you get too close, or startle them with a brusque movement or noise, they will explode from almost underfoot, and rocket away, zig-zagging across the field and will cross a long distance before they will glance back to make sure they're not being followed.  I will never walk on water, but trying not to be noticed, or running away at the first sign from real or imagined conflict, are habits I recognize.

The format was driven by my participation in the BarenForums latest exchange (91).  The paper size is 7" X 8" and 20 copies went to that print exchange. 

 

The streaking at the top, is from a little too much size-the glue and alum that I added to the paper.

Year of the RAT

NOTE: I started working on this little print in November 2019 and finished mailing them out in late February....just as the COVID-19 was just beginning to migrate out of China and into Italy.  I certainly didn't expect that the epidemic that started in Wuhan would spread so far and so fast, and my folded-paper, mouse/rat was supposed to be an innocent and gentle reminder of the fragility and transient nature of all things....

 The Rat is the first of the 12 animals that make up the 12-year cycle of the Chinese Zodiac and as this year also marks the beginning a new decade, it was supposed to be a year of good and auspicious beginnings.  I began working on this print in November--as I used it as a class project for my beginners' woodblock class in Florence's art and culture center,  L'Appartamento.  Using the traditional method of working in which the carvers and printers would have worked from a simple sketch--I provided the students with my drawing of an origami rat (mouse) and the students became first the carvers and then the printers of the blocks that were needed to print the color print version. Along the way I got to show them the hanshita method of image transfer that allows a reliable way to ensure that the multiple color blocks will register to the black and white keyblock, much as they would have done in the Ukiyo-e workshops of Japan 150 years ago.

 I was able to combine my student-cut color plates and with my key block (with the addition of another color block to allow some bokashi gradation printing) using the combination of plates to print this year's "YEAR of the RAT" greeting card.

Shina plywood key block (before removing the corner marks).

An early proof in B&W and gray

I also printed them on a mix of papers, although the majority were printed on Western papers--Magnani incisioni, Fabriano Artistico and Arches 180lb cotton etching papers instead of Japanese washi.   That let me have cards that had a thick, postcard-like heft but also gave them the slightly grainy, textured look that mokuhanga prints get when they're printed on Western papers.

Of the 125 copies I printed, about 40 went to the Baren Zodiac exchange, another 40 to colleagues and collectors, and about another 40 to family and friends.

As I wrote above, my little zodiac print was supposed to represent a good-luck, origami mouse--but this was not the kind of luck or 2020 I was expecting.  I hope the current international health and social disaster ends soon and that the toll on human life and suffering of all things in the natural world are not greater than we can bear and that we remember to help each other through the difficult times ahead--the more fortunate assisting those in need. 

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. 

Chinese Zodiac: 2007-2018-Mokuhanga

With my portrait of Bosco as my "Year of the Dog" print for 2018, I have finished one 12-year cycle  for the Baren Forum's Chinese New Year exchange. Each year I printed enough copies to share with the other printmakers in the exchange, with extras for relatives and colleagues and  a few to give away to collectors or important contacts and usually a few more to sell at occasional print fairs or inquiring visitors to my website. Some years I finished them so late I was too embarrassed to send them out (Tiger) so I have lots. Others are now gone except for a few bad or odd copies.
I should note that the "Year of the Boar" pretty much marks my introduction to woodblock printing as that print and making wine labels were my impetus for starting down this odd path. Here, in chronological order are the prints from this series.
For Baren members thinking, "Hey! I never got one of those!", both Boar and Rat were made with the intention of joining the official exchange, but each time, I procrastinated too much and I missed out on the entry date deadline, and I was a new member and didn't think to ask to still be included so they were not part of the Baren exchange, even though I cut and printed about 60 copies of each....
Note that with the exception of "RAT" which I produced exactly as drawn by my then 8-year-old son Sami, and "Tiger" which is based on a Tibetan Tiger carpet, are of the prints are original designs drawn, carved and printed by me. All are mokuhanga prints except for "Goat/Sheep", which is a wood engraving.
I'd also like to mention, I am not much into astrology, and was happy to illustrate the Chinese zodiac because 1) it gave me artist's license to draw and print some charming creatures in a small, postcard format and as I've mentioned before, 2) a chance to procrastinate until February (and beyond) as the Chinese New Year is a month later than ours and gave me extra time without seeming too late.