key block

Experiments!

Uncategorized

I’m doing a residency at Karuizawa Mokuhanga School and trying some different carving and printing methods. First of all, it’s a wonderful opportunity to focus as much as I want on printmaking – which is turning out to be most of my waking hours! There are others here working, so it’s a great environment to concentrate. If I was at home with this much free time I would no doubt be organizing my sock collection or some other such passtime of questionable value 😉

Often I’ll use the computer to print out a cleaned-up, precise set of transfer sheets for the key block and/or color blocks, and paste them down as a carving guide. This time I traced the key lines directly onto the block.

traced lines, midway through carving
all carved!

This block is magnolia wood, something I’ve never carved on before. It’s softer than cherry, but is able to hold a pretty good line. I expect it would not last as long as a cherry block, but since I don’t publish thousands of any design, that’s not such a huge consideration. (I do wonder what will happen to it when I get it home to 50% humidity conditions in Texas!)

When starting with a key block, I usually print the key lines on laminated transfer sheets, as in the first photo below showing transfer sheets (hanshita) for Cedar Path. Gampi is affixed to a more sturdy backing sheet with repositionable spray adhesive, printed with the key block, then pasted down to transfer the lines for carving. This time I printed the transfer sheets directly onto washi – Awagami kozo extra light – and will paste those down directly. With fingers crossed!

gampi transfer sheets
Awagami kozo extra light
block with sumi

Another change from my normal practice:

You’ll see the kento (registration marks) printed directly on the transfer sheets! This is because the transfer sheet is too light to place into registration marks on the color blocks.

Stay tuned for more experimental results!

New Fall print progress

Uncategorized

After first learning how to make prints with water-based pigments from Annie Bissett (https://anniebissett.com/home.html) in 2017, I went home and made a tiny (~ 2″ x 3″) little print using plywood samples I had received from various sources, and testing out about 5 different paper types. Most of these ended up being sent out to friends and family as Fall greetings.

I decided this year to make another Fall-themed print, which I started working on back in June, when I first made the “frankenblocks” from thin cherry and plywood plus applied chunks of wood for registration marks. Sadly, the set of prints is not going to be ready for the official start of Fall, since other things got in the way. The new goal is to have the first printing ready sometime during Fall. Here’s the key block and my first attempt at making hanshita for the color block transfers:

As you can see from the bleeding and the wrinkling, I used WAY too much liquid to print the hanshita. Try 2 turned out OK! When I used the glue I brought back from Japan (the stuff Dave uses to attach line-work transfers), most of the gampi peeled off with the mounting paper.

The transfer above was for the yellow color, which will cover the leaves entirely. Here are some shots of the carved areas for blue and light orange-ish:

And finally, here are the finished color blocks – 6 of them – cleaned off, before any pigment has been applied (yellow, red; light reddish, blue; dark green, and light green).

I will confess, I have done a small round of test printing! The results of that will need to wait until the next post.