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.

IMC 2: Shapes and blotches

Here are a few more things I wanted to share from early June's International Moku Hanga Conference in Kyoto/Awaji Island. I'm an amateur printmaker and my interests were particularly focused on the practical aspects of carving and printing rather that the historical or cultural impact of Ukiyo-e prints. (although I greedily looked at as much as I could for ideas to incorporate, expand upon, borrow or appropriate.)
In the first day's demonstrations of Kyoto-style printing and traditional carving, I went over to watch traditional Ukiyo-e carver, Mr. Hiroshi Fujisawa carving a cherry block. I didn't take photos of the first part as I was watching too closely--he carved the outline of these shapes using a hangi-toh chisel--a pointed chisel to incise precisely against the edge of the shape using two to three cuts. These would serve as stop-cuts to be cleanly edged away using an Aisuke or bull-nosed chisel to cleanly pare away the wood up to the incised edge.
But before that he had to clear away all the waste wood, that which would not print.

Here in these four photos he is using a mallet and curved chisel to rapidly clear almost up against he already incised shapes.
I was quite taken by how quick he was and how close to the carved shapes he was clearing--I haven't the control to work that close so it takes me a lot longer.
Finally using a much wider, shallower chisel he finished clearing the areas around the printing surface.

He cleared the blocks much the way I would use an eraser to clean off a blackboard.
Tap, Tap, Tap large chips of wood were flying.
He has carved peg holes in his low work bench and there is a bench dog(that square peg) the board is butted against to keep it from sliding away.

he did in about an hour what would take me at least a day.

Later that week on Awaji Island, Mr. Shoichi Kitamura(carving) and Mr. Makoto Nakayama (printing) led a panel discussion and presentation of "Mokuhanga in Japan Today--Collaborations between Craftsmen and Artists" detailing and providing examples of their work done in collaboration with Artists from the UK and Australia.

Here was one very striking and stunning example of what's possible:

This photo shows four watercolor paintings/drawings by the UK artist Rebecca Salter;
On the left are her original paintings that were used by the studio to prepare blocks and print from.
On the Right are the woodblock prints.
The drawings by themselves werea already very special but it was the reworking of them as woodblock prints using ukiyo-e traditional methods and the amazing richness and depth of color and surface that was quite remarkable for me as a "striving-to-improve" neophyte woodblock artist.
There were obviously subtle differences-they were not identical but they were gorgeous and it was quite eye-opening for me to see the reproduction of splotchy ink drops and bleeding/seeping ink marks reproduced using multiple blocks and over printings. They talked about the range of techniques that could be used; printing on the back to have the color bleed through, careful multiple bokashi-printings, etc.etc. One not-so-obvious revelation was the careful division of the block to be printed into sections and small areas of bokashi might be printed section by section rather than trying to accomplish it all at once.
Here below is one process photo during the carving of one of the blocks and the carver holding a piece of dried equisitum (Horsetail plant) which has a raspy/sandpaper like surface used to sand down the edges of the shapes to allow for softer printing.(that's NOT a cigarette in his mouth but a small piece of dried horsetail being moistened).

They spoke a bit about how challenging this project had been for them but how they enjoyed the challenge and welcomed future work and collaboration with fine artists to realize works using traditional moku hanga techniques.

All I know is I can't wait to try printing an ink blotch--on purpose. ( I get quite a few by accident...).

IMC 2011: Colors

Color Grid; moku hanga overlaps: Red/Yellow/Blue/Green

I was fortunate to be able to attend the 1st International Conference of Moku Hanga (IMC 2011); a conference of international artists, artisans, scholars and historians of Japanese woodblocks that was held in Japan in the cities of Kyoto and Awaji Island in early June. I took some photos, but was often too absorbed in what was happening to take decent pictures. In the second half of the conference on Awaji Island; A demonstration of contemporary woodblock prints and printmaking by a group of Japanese publishers and professional printers included these prints of a simple demonstration of the effects of overlapping colors.

This color exercise was one I had long hoped to do myself and was happy to see so clearly illustrated. Special thanks to Lawrence Pinto, another conference participant who was in this session who had the good sense to take these photographs, and the courtesy to send me JPEG copies to share.

Four blocks were carved in a grid pattern with three primary colors and one secondary color. They were carved in such a way as to show the effects of overlapping color. Each of the original block colors falls on one of the corner squares in the composite image above.

Since traditional moku hanga, japanese woodblocks are printed with transparent, water-based colors, the paper shows through the printed color giving them a luminosity they wouldn't have if they were opaque and simply reflecting the ambient light.
Transparent blue over yellow will give green, red over yellow, orange; et cetera.
What isn't easily imagined is what happens when you change the sequence of color; yellow over blue will yield a different effect than blue over yellow and in this particular exercise the forth block was green; the effects and browns/greys obtained would be different if it had been orange or purple.
Similarly a cool red vs a warm red, yellow or blue will shift everything again towards a different green/brown/grey.
The last two illustrations are the code for the grid so you can change the colors and try it for yourself.

P.S. The code illustrated in the last two pictures will give you a similar print but different from the one actually illustrated: the four pure colors run across the top of the graph in the map, but on the opposite corners in the actual print.

Doodles

Here are a few of the scribblings I did in the waiting room Monday.

All of the half-circle shapes are for a large, collaborative puzzle print and my small piece of wood is this shape.
I still haven't really decided on a direction.

The lampreys are one of the recurring opportunistic/parasitic organisms that inhabit my sketchbooks and psyche....

The lungs.....I don't know; holding my breath?inside/outside? Life/living?
Again it's an image that I've drawn over and over; sometimes quite literally, other times more oddly hidden or masked.

I've been looking over these and my sketchbooks these few days.
I'm off during Alex's recovery so I've had some time at home.
I'm getting itchy to start a NEW print....I've even been looking at my blank blocks and plank lumber, just looking at boards as sometimes the wood itself will tell me what to do.
I'm waiting for the dust to settle and A. to return to normal before I really go forward. But he's healing fast and I've had hours to myself when he hasn't really needed supervision.

I even managed to pull a stack of damp, partially-printed rabbit prints out of the freezer and finish them yesterday!
They're in a stack drying by the vent and should be ready to go out in the next 1-2 days!

Waiting Room

Cholesteotoma

It's always a bad sign when the doctor says the procedure should only take an hour or so and three hours pass and you're still in the waiting room, beneath the large clock, a magazine rack full of old magazines and the drip coffee pot with acid coffee and artificial whitener.

I brought a clipboard with all the necessary papers and a stack of sheets of bond paper, thinking I would probably be here longer than we had hoped for.

Doodles of projects that I've not yet started emerge. Two print exchanges I've signed up for but not really thought about and some recurring images that have been coming back again and again.

But the longer I waited the more medical became the drawings until finally I just drew what we were really worried about. This is a highly rough schematic of the middle and inner ear as imagined if seen in a frontal slice through the skull. I've drawn/imagined a clean middle ear with the three little bones, the incus, malleus and stapes all in place against the snail-like, spiral cochlea and mastoid. I've studied anatomy but this is fancifully imagined and would make my old anatomy teachers cringe with dismay. But I'm engaging in guided imagery, positively thinking about good outcomes with the naive hope of a parent, whose child is again under general anesthesia, trusting us to have made the right decision and that everything will be all right.

A. is having his fourth operation on his middle ear to see if the benign tumor he was born with has come back, or if his recurring hearing issues and infections are just scarring and fluid. The Surgeon and Operating Room had scheduled him for just an hour, which means the doctor actually expects it to be quick and easy, probably just fluid and a reconstruction of his ear bones...but the delay suggests otherwise. Cholesteotoma is an benign, but erosive and very slow growing tumor of the middle ear and is noted for being recurrent. A. has had several infections in the last 2 years, and a recent polyp was a telltale warning that things were again amiss.

When the surgeon finally emerges to bring us news, it is not the end of the world, but not what we had hoped.

The growth had come back, they had to take out what was left of his middle ear bones to clean out what had wrapped around them and couldn't be dissected away. They'll have to go back in again in 6-9 months; at that time they should be able to see if they truly have gotten it all out and replace the missing bones with a titanium implant so he can hear again out of that ear. We were led into the recovery room where A. was already awake, a large dressing on one ear, looking like a dog who had just had one of his ears cropped.
But awake, not crying, asking again and again (the sedatives had temporarily knocked out his short-term memory) what they had found. In the lull between his frequent awakenings and resting, and before we took him home, I added to the drawing the small black growth around the little bones that aren't there anymore.

June Century

Louis Rhead, Literary Poster for the Century Magazine,
June 1896, stone color lithograph.

I love this print and it's one of the few pieces of original art that I own. It's a splendid example of "American" Art Nouveau printed during the heydey of color stone lithography. (Rhead is actually English and part of the distinguished family of artists and potters living on both sides of the Atlantic) He moved to the US at the end of the 19th Century and was among a handful of very influential and successful artists working in this style during it's rather brief popularity in this country.
The curving, thorny rose brambles contrast with the flowing lines of the hair and clothes and it is printed in just a few colors--orange,teal, purple,red, yellow and black but achieves a richness and complexity well beyond that number.
A better image can be seen here:
http://www.lessing-photo.com/dispimg.asp?i=03080857+&cr=2&cl=1

This marks my 100th post.

I don't know that that actually means very much as I don't think I picked up any readers until #75 or so but still it seems like a little milestone.

It does serve as a moment to pause and see what I've done so far and to begin to think about what I want to do next.
Lacrime di Rospo started out hoping to be a farming blog stemming from my small organic farming venture--that never really took off--before we left Italy to move to Santa Cruz.

We were "Toad Organics" or Rospobio and I was trying to lay the groundwork for a small CSA (community supported agriculture project) in Florence.

But we moved to the USA and the farm sort of got abandoned. I went back to work as a physician to pay the bills and drowned my sorrow not with whiskey and beer but with rice paste and water-based colors.

I took a 5 day course in Moku Hanga at the local community college and started making prints again for the first time in many years.

So here I am. It's about 5 years later.
I have about 23 woodblock prints that I've completed.
I still consider myself a novice, if not a beginner. My carving skills are improving but the printing is still woefully lacking in control, skill, and just simple experience. Even if I learn something from every print, I still feel very much like a
"hobby" printer.
I'd like to take another step forward. Each print has been a kind of home-study course, with some kind of goal or skill I hoped to explore or improve on.
"Lydia" was about lyrical, calligraphic lines, My little series of Blu vases was about overlapping pale transparent colors; "Domino" about trying to get a dense black by overlapping primary colors; etc.
My recent trip to Japan to attend a conference on International artists working in Moku Hanga was a great opportunity to look at work by some wonderful artists from all over the world and to get both ideas and energy to push forward to try to improve the quality of my work.

SO here's a list of some things I hope to do this year:

A white line print--probably a floral still life or fairly explicit nude.
A landscape--I have almost no prints with a strong horizontal format.
A still life or interior scene.
A larger print than I'm used to.
Something Dark and rich and splotchy.
And I'd like to work again on achieving nice rich dark colors as well as wispy, washes and delicate colors.
And I'd like to work on "quality control"--cleaner edges and less smudges where they do matter while still allowing some spontaneity with looser printing when that's important.

I'll have some time.

We're moving back to Italy in the Fall. B needs to go back to work full-time in Italy and we'd like the kids to have another year in Italian public schools. So it looks like we'll be back in Florence for the school year. Since I can't work over there as an MD, I'll be able to spend a fair amount carving and printing.

Hope to get something started soon though.
I won't leave before September, and that's plenty of time before that to try something new.

Bloom

Kyoto Cherries, June 2011

I sent out my kimono print today. It went out as it appeared in my last post with no additions other than a title and edition number and signature. It will be part of the 60+ prints that will be included in the Baren "Inspired by Japan" benefit portfolio. (individual prints and the entire set should be available for purchase in the coming weeks).

I had been planning on calling it, "The Year of No Cherries..." but this seemed a little too sad and, worse, would have been incorrect. I looked up the traditional dates of full bloom of the cherry blossoms in Japan and found this note:

"This year's cherry blossom season will be overshadowed by the tremendous loss caused by the recent earthquake. However, we believe that the blossoms will serve as symbols of hope and resilience and a source of motivation along Japan's road to recovery."

and it included photos taken by the Sendai representative who went and explored and gave a full report of this year's bloom.
Full Bloom in Sendai was 21-4-2011. ( http://www.japan-guide.com/blog/sakura11/110421_sendai.html )

So I thought about it and changed the title to "RIPPLES"
The little waves caused by the falling blossoms onto the blue silk waters of the many ponds and rivers and lakes that enrobe Japan;the outward spreading waves and interconnections of events. Blooms that signal Spring, and rebirth, and hope.
Cherry blossoms that are also atoms--the breeze caused by these petals can be felt across the world and will continue for one-hundred thousand years.

And in this year's new growth and tender shoots, next years buds have already formed.

(note: I attended the 1st International Conference of Moku Hanga in Kyoto, Japan and got back from Japan last night. I took this photograph while walking through the city. The cherry trees were no longer in bloom but were covered with these small fruits, black when ripe that littered the ground with their falling fruit and staining the sidewalks black. I tasted some. They are not sweet and the birds seemed to leave them mostly alone.