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.

Inside and outside the Box (Necker Cube)

 

 I quickly drew this simple cube/3-D illusion (see "Necker cube" if you're curious) as a beginners' exercise for one of my mokuhanga classes from last year. All of the participants carved a keyblock line block of the cube and another of one of the face blocks so they could learn basic and proper carving techniques for lines and solid shapes prior to moving on to their own projects.

I kept their blocks and added a few more to use as demo blocks to show various printing techniques as the class progressed.  I found I liked the roughness of their carving, especially when mixing and superimposing the various duplicates on top of each other.  So after I finished with this group, I printed a few variants on leftover proofing papers.

 Now after a long hiatus myself from carving and printing, I thought I'd pull these out again.
I will be testing my new barens (the Hon-barens I made during the pandemic lockdowns) as well as some odds and ends of poorly labeled paper to warm up again to printing.

It's a bit like doodling with blocks and paper and ink....as I'm building each of these multiples by grabbing blocks and trying to add layers of color to pull forward and push back some of the planes.

Most of these will likely end up in the recycle bin but I might even end up with a couple of one-of-a-kind prints worth keeping. Most of the photos are from my studio, with poor fluorescent lighting and my phone campera lens. Their any LOTS of grays, and they don't photograph well.

 

This one with the idea of all of the shadows draining from a tipped over box intrigues me enough to try again with better paper and more pigment layers to build some depth and shadow.

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. 

MokuHanga a Firenze--June 9-10: Upcoming workshops.

My next small-group beginners' workshop for Japanese woodblock will be next month in Florence.
June 9-10, from 9:30am-6pm.  This class is targeted to Italian speakers but I'll be hosting another class later this summer specifically for English speakers if there is enough interest.

And remember, private classes for 1-2 people in English or Italian are possible and can be tailored to fit students goals and schedules and are suited to beginners who want to get a jump on the technique through one-on-one instruction as well as for advanced students (linoleum or oil-based) who want to to learn the Japanese method of printing but already have a good sense of carving techniques.
I'll post additional dates and venues as they become available.

Year of the Dog-Work in Progress

Once I finish this print for the "Year of the Dog" I will have completed the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac for the BarenForum's artist exchange I've been participating in since 2007.
I've been working on this for a bit--and had lots of thumbnails and sketches before settling on a sketch of our rescued Segugio Italiano--an Italian Scenthound--that we adopted about 1 1/2 years ago.



He's a handsome and sweet fellow, but he is a dog that was used for hunting, and will disappear for hours if we let him loose, following the lingering scent of the hares and deer and boars that roam our fields at night.

My sketches started as silly cartoons and gradually became more and more representative as I looked at photo references and repeatedly sketched him in the kitchen.  Once I was happy with a  final drawing, it was copied using a xerox machine and these copies then glued down onto multiple blocks for carving to serve as guides for cutting.

There is one cherry plywood block for the key block (black lines).

There are two shina plywood blocks and another 2 Okoume' plywood blocks to mimic the dog's fur and textures.
 

All the blocks are carved and each print their own portion of this layered mosaic--and now I hope that I can make the sum of each layer better than the individual blocks.

Here are some early proofs; I still need to trim a few edges, adjust 1-2 kentos and decide on the colors.

He's an orange-brown dog, so I'll try to go for a greenish blue background but getting his color right (these are too orange) is going to be the key to getting the print to work as much as getting a background that isn't too aggressive.  

Apostrophetic

 This is my second attempt at a white-line or Provincetown print.  You can just make out the thin white halo around the color areas that are the hallmark of the American variant of tradional moku hanga.

A simple drawing of commas and apostrophes, black shapes on white paper, caught my eye and I played with it, changing the composition.
I liked it enough to draw it a few more times.
Then enough to trace one of those drawings onto a piece of shina, and cut out, with a V-gouge, the outline of my fat apostrophes, heavy and irregularly drawn.

Today I went to the studio and made a couple of color proofs.
Pink, Blue, Violet, Black, Mica, Sumi.

I'm not sure which I like best. The original idea was to make the forms black, on a white chalk ground on tan paper but I didn't print any like that.  But I also thought about the colors of traditional printed text: blue, black, red, blue-black and ended up working with that palette.

You may not notice but the apostrophes get a little bigger as they move to the bottom row and you definitely can't see the effect of the mica powder on the background, which makes the lighter center section slightly opaque and iridescent.


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Walla Walla?

Why I am going to Walla Walla, you ask?
Well, this is the second year that Whitman College is offering a moku hanga program and they have invited Kitamura Shōichi, one of the best contemporary Japanese woodblock carvers to Walla Walla who will be in residence during our work-study period. I got wind of this from April Vollmer a few months ago and jumped at the chance to be able to improve (I hope) my carving by observing the proper technique of a skilled carver.   We'll be working alongside but separately--sort of in the Japanese tradition of watching and learning through observation, but we'll also be allowed to ask questions and have him available for an hour or so a day to assist us and I'm hoping to have him show us the proper way to sharpen the hangi-toh and my larger nomi that I haven't really been able to keep sharp enough. Meanwhile, we'll be working on individual projects, and I've ordered some blocks and paper from McClains to be shipped directly to the center and that are waiting for me to get cracking.

The only current snag is that I've been thinking about this for a few weeks now and I still haven't really an idea of what I'm going to work on.  Maybe one of my etagami that I thought would make a nice print, or an idea I've been saving, or a loose abstract work from one of my sketchbooks or try to tackle one of my line-drawing nudes from my still ill-defined shunga series?

At the very least, I may have to find a glask flask and tie a noose and try out this ancient method of achieving the diffuse light that I hear is ideal for carving.

I get in later tonight and tomorrow, I should get to see the facility and meet the organizers, Akira (Ron) Takemoto and Keiko Hara, and my fellow participants. And I'll have 5 uninterrupted days to come up with SOMETHING.  Now that's something to be excited about.

More Whales/Ancora le Balene.

I printed a small run of the 3-block whale prints on good paper but I can't say I'm thrilled.
I didn't keep to my test prints and the colors wandered way too far afield (offshore?) towards the turquoise and teals and there's too much variability within the small number of prints I made.
I never did get to use Block #4--I had hoped to print a white spray with gofun; white crushed powder ground from seashells to mimic the foam and spray of the whale's breath but even on the beige and off-white papers, the dark sea and sky makes the paper already seem "white".
Tomorrow after they're dry I'll cull the rejects of weak or too strong colored ones and see what I'm left with.
In addition to this batch, there's another 20 copies of the simpler one block/2-color version I may try to have another go at the color version to get closer to my original vision.
These were all small samples of the Okoume' plywood I got recently and cut down to use as a grain-printing block for my workshops. This print was a "test" to make sure these blocks were easy to carve and print from.

Block 4 that didn't get used.

La Bottega del Cigno//workshop photos

Here are some of the sample works from this weekend's Mokuhanga workshop near Padua:

Giuseppe's Typewriter keys

Pietro's Volcano (waiting for a photo of finished work).

Sofia's waves/leaves/undulations

Sylvia's Wolf "Haku" (proof stage) The final had two gradation printings/bokashis.

Paola's Daisies

Rosita's Gladiolas

Anna's Rabbit in Snow

I just finished putting away the materials from my weekend class just outside Padua, in Noventa Padovana.  I was a guest instructor at the Bottega del Cigno ("the Swan Studio"), a artistic and cultural association that has an illustration school and art programs for children and adults. Run by the able and seemingly indefatigable, Daniela Veronese, the space houses two huge rooms with large tables, great lighting--both natural and color-corrected fluorescent--air conditioning and lots of supplies suitable to a functioning art education facility.

We had a small group of just 7 participants although one was the son of one of the students from my last Florence class--and father and son worked together on one set of blocks.

As always, to try to cover enough in just 2 days the history, technique, challenges, tricks, and try to get across both the possibilities and nuances inherent in this fascinating process is a challenge and while I think I touched on most of the bases, I know that there are things that got left out or not emphasized enough.....

Here are some photos of the group hard at work.

+As usual, I brought too much stuff--but I always think that having actual prints--Ukiyo-e and contemporary--as well as things to look at makes for an interesting class.  And we had lots of barens, brushes, catalogs and art books, papers, sample prints and a few gems from my collection of prints.

My next class in in Florence, July 1,2 at Il Bisonte, now just 1 month away.