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.

Kimono--Done but not finished

I set a June 1 deadline for getting my contribution to the "Inspired by Japan" benefit portfolio printed and ready for mailing. I have some other big June commitments and know if it doesn't get done by then it won't be finished in time.

Consequently, I've been printing rather frantically. I got a lot done yesterday, and this morning, awoke to find it grey and foggy outside--perfect printing weather--so I got up early and started in again. By Noon I had the printing done except for some quick little touches: the wooden bar holding out the arms was pink--needed to be overprinted to brown and the little seal at the bottom was blotchy and had a light glaze of quinacridine coral added.

So, I think it's "done".
4 blocks, about 6 colors and 9-10 impressions.
Printed on Echizen Kozo natural washi.


The only nagging problem is it still looks and feels
"unfinished". I had liked my other color proof; the darker orange/grey background did make the kimono shape float and while a bit more drab was more striking due to the contrast. I chose the green instead as more jewel-like and I liked the connotation of the glowing green background. I had planned and ditched a block that would have had the subtle shadows and creases of the silk kimono as being unnecessary and too busy.

I'll pull out the 31 I need for the exchange and from the remaining 10 or so I may pull out the few that are too pale or too green and have a go at glazing a darker background again to see how they look.
I still have one more day after all.

Trial Kimonos

Lots done today.

I managed to print a few proofs of the kimono print.

While not quite what I envisioned, it is striking enough that I had to pause to decide what will stay and what will go.

The blossoms are WAY too Pink/Mauve and will need to be much paler and more glowing.
But it's the stripes in the background that I'm not sure of....I was afraid the pale simple background would be too still so I didn't totally clear the block. Since they are on the same block as the body of the kimono (blue) I'm a bit tethered as to how light and subtle I can make them and still make the kimono silk the right blue.
I printed up four variants. I can see some adjustments that need to be made to the keyblock and I'll still need to carve one more block I think.

I have a busy week of work so I'll mull this over before making any changes.

Baren

This is my primary printing press.
A Murasaki, Medium Baren made in Japan of braided hard nylon cord.
It is covered with a bamboo skin/leaf which, over time and with use will crack and wear out.
I need to do some serious printing this week and the small concentric circular holes that were forming in the cover meant it was time to be replaced.
The top photo shows the old cover removed from the baren itself.

The bottom 2 photos show my fairly mediocre attempt to replace it.
This is my second try ever. The first has lasted about 6 months, was serviceable if unevenly tied but seemed to work just fine.
I did manage to get it on and tied tight enough; but there is a tiny rip in the top,
that will require me to replace it again fairly soon--the usual friction of regular printing will open/enlarge it. I may get through this print run as is, but if seems to be enlarging, it's more likely I'll have to do it all over.

Still, I have four sheets of paper in a damp pack and tomorrow I hope to proof the
Kimono print. I have four blocks carved and want to see how it looks before I carve another. This baren cover should hold out at least that long.

Shina Kimono

Well, I meant to include this photo in the last post but didn't have my camera and the sketch was too big for my scanner. This is about a 11" X 16" board of Shina Plywood (a kind of Japanese Linden or Basswood). I have three of these for a total of six plates.

This is the almost finished keyblock for my effort for the Japan Relief print--if I can get it done in time.
There's still to fix a few slips/lost lines and I have to carve the 4-5 color blocks that should go with this but this should be the bulk of the carving work.

I'll be quiet for a while as I do need to work and I still have some details not quite worked out.

I doubt this will offend anybody who isn't already aghast at what I was thinking before.
The real fear now is that it won't be interesting.

More rejects

I've been drawing thumbnail and finished sketches and throwing them out as fast as I produce them. Most of the ideas haven't been too bad; it's just that they've been either too direct and blunt or just not nuanced enough to be interesting.
I received a fair number of emails and private remarks about my last post and ultimately decided to listen to what seemed like good advice from others closer than I am to Japan.

My favorite of the rejects was this:

I have always loved Japanese folding screens and really liked the idea of the layers that would involve doing a woodblock print depicting one.
I was interested in the the stillness of the usually hand-painted nature scenes but this would have had this big, rolling wave instead of the usual seasonal landscape. I got as far as this finished watercolor sketch (lots of other drawings with more or less insistent waves on them) but ditched it as just too insensitive to do at this time with so many people dead and missing.

My other ideas involved carving and printing this seismogram reading taken off the coast of Sendai and recording the enormous earthquake near its epicenter. I had hoped to work it in as part of a print but found it didn't add much beside a macabre sense of tragedy and didn't like the drawings I had done that included it.

Ultimately, I just started carving.
The sketch I chose does involve a kimono, cherry blossoms,
water, a gentle reminder of the the passage of time and the fragility of life and a probably too-subtle nod to unstable atoms and electrons.
But it's not obvious and risks being if anything too banal.
Hope to finish carving the keyblock tomorrow as good or bad, it will be a crunch to get it done on time.