The Three Graces: Glad, Hefty and Kirkland

The Three Graces, moku-hanga woodcut; 8.5"x11.25" on Echizen Kozo washi

; edition 12

I don't think it was irony or wry cynicism that led me to call my last print the Three Graces;
I think instead it really was just the way the three sets of hands and tilted heads rose to the surface from the memories of art classes of long ago and art visits of more recent times and reminded me as I sketched the three bags that would become the subject of this print.  It was only later that I realized how apt a title it was. 

 

Agliaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia; they represent the three Greek Charities or Graces;
They were the goddesses of joy, pleasure, grace, beauty, festivity, adornment, dance, and song. The daughters of Zeus and sea-nymph Eurynome-- they were also the handmaidens of Hera and Aphrodite, and hence, among other things the protectors of vegetation.
Here's the entire painting, from the Botticelli room of the Uffizi gallery in Florence:

It's big, beautiful painting and enigmatic in the way that lost symbols often are.

It's a complex work, and it's symbolism and thematic origins  are still debated but it is reproduced everywhere and these three young women adorn posters, calenders, postcards, plates, trays, etc. and have become part of every Florentine's collective memory.

(Once, after a kindergarten class field trip; Sami stood in front of it and spent 15 minutes explaining to his grandmother (and a gathering of open-mouthed, American tourists) the complex symbolism and identity of the various figures: Zephry, Chloris, Venus, Eros, Mercury, the Three Graces, Flora.....))

But we've come a long way from Classical Greece or Renaissance Florence.....
I'm an American and can't claim to come from a culture that is synonymous with Art, or Creation, or any kind of Charity.
As one of the largest consumer societies in the world, we are responsible for the bulk of the consumption of needless crap, and the resulting mountain of packaging, paper, plastic wrap, cardboard, starch peanuts, styrofoam, injection-molded plastic all designed to safely envelope, package, transport  stuff we never really needed into our homes and lives.
 
So instead of Grace, Joy, Mirth and Song we have Glad, Hefty and Kirkland. And we'll be remembered, perhaps in 2000 year's time by the accumulations of refuse we've left behind rather than some painted panel or chiseled relic.

Mid Trash

I think I'm about half way.
I'm printing off the 3rd block and have taken 5 impressions so far.
The print is in that "oh my god, what was I thinking" stage where my hi key color came out too flat and my low key color is way too yellow.....oh well, that's what haste and bad lighting will do......

I've printed three times off the Okoume block and while it is a bit delicate--occasionally it has a fiber that sticks up and wants to print-- but it's printing well. The vertical wood grain is visible as a texture on the paper but not pronounced in the print the way pine would print as a strong wood grain.

Detail: all but the keyblock are printing off Okoume marine plywood.So far Yellow, then red and then brown off the same block.

I'll definitely use it in the future and will explore it's limits/possibilities some more.
As All-shina isn't available in Italy, it's a decent (but not inexpensive alternative).

Tucked prints in the freezer for a few days....too much going on to safely print.
Hope to finish it though by next week.

Trash redux

It's nice to be carving cherry again.

I  decided to start in on my backlog of "Prints to Do" list and this trash bag doodle was in the stack near the top.

Trash bag doodle from my sketchbook

I had gotten as far as a neatly-drawn line drawing and transferred that to an acetate and then to this block with some carbon paper.

This is a 9 x 12" American cherry/birch plywood block I had purchased from McClains about a year ago.
I hope to use the Birch Ply back for one of the color blocks.

The Three Graces (key block in progress)

I've been carving now for a couple of days....stealing an hour or two from other things when I can.
I have an idea for the color blocks but it's still pretty ill defined. I'm hoping to do a partial reduction but using multiple blocks still to allow for lots of overlap of colors (and chances to fix any errors).

Trash

I'm trying to get through a backlog of printing, but I've been putting a little time into my trash bag print/project.

Here is a reworked sketch; with eventual registration marks on the drawing so subsequent copies or tracings will all match up.

And at the top is a simple xerox of the above, with some colored pencils filling in the shapes to get an idea of what colors and values might look like.

Still working on how many blocks and colors I'll need to achieve the look I want.

Hefty

trash bag doodle No 1.

I have quite a few ideas gurgling away in the back of my mind/psyche. Some are pretty ambitious and involved and not something I want to tackle as I get ready to relocate to Italy (I leave in 2 weeks). But although I have a few simpler ideas I could probably get done before I leave, I haven't yet really jumped into anything with enthusiasm. In the meanwhile, I'm cleaning out the house and filling the recycling bins with papers and trash.

Needing to get out of the house, I grabbed my sketchbook and headed downtown. Not surprisingly, I've been drawing trash bags. Mostly in threes. Sometimes just one. Never two.

I like the one on the left as a possible woodblock print and started to think about printing logistics. The doodles on the bottom are thoughts about color separations and blocks. I would try this with six or seven blocks--with or without a keyblock.
However, this particular image could probably be tackled as a REDUCTION print, using just one block, gradually printing and then carving away from the image. I could go light to dark and progressively overlap colors to get the darks needed for the black and dark plastic.

I've never done a reduction print--and while it would solve all sorts of registration issues and would probably be faster; it would mean destroying the block as I go along, with no chance to go back and reprint areas later if they are too light or the wrong shade.