"Sarah" April 5, 2006, 7 x 3.75 feet, pen and ink drawing. Permanent Collection, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

detail

Framed drawing in studio (plastic wrapped)

The squiggly lines in my new drawing are concentric tracings of each tone layer — in that drawing there are 22 tones, I believe — I was experimenting (pretty successfully) with creating tone by that weird cross-hatching — each tone layer was treated exactly the same way — by ‘coloring’ them in with little parallel concentric squiggles on about .o8″ centers — quite a programming challenge! First I traced the darkest area, next the two darkest areas as if they were one area (changes the shape of the area so a random sort of ‘cross hatching’ may occur), then traced the three darkest areas as if they were single shapes, etc. etc. until finally I traced the entire non-white area… Worked well! The paper held up and in the darks, there’s a beautiful low-relief ‘combing’ from the repeated passing of the extra-fine point Precise V5 Rolling Writer pen (eight or nine of them, actually — they only hold enough ink for 10 or 12 hours of drawing)… I’m finding it quite difficult to briefly describe my process, but it’s pretty simple, really…

In a way, this drawing took exactly one month to produce, if you include the previous failed efforts and the one-week workshop I taught at Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, CT last month.  Here’s a short movie from my first attempt (which was torn to shreds by the pen — the paper stretched, wrinkled, then tore under the repeated drawing) — shot March 6, 2006:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL3Hyd2MIi8

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!! What a great week we had, and I congratulate you all for having designed, carved, and successfully printed Japanese technique woodblock prints! WOW! YOU DID IT! Janis — I’m SO sorry you fell ill the 2nd day — hope you’re all well now and that you’ll be able to finish up the next time I visit Connecticut? Special thanks to our host, the Center for Contemporary Printmaking, CCP director and master printer, Tony Kirk, and staff Chris, Heather, Jackie, and everyone else who made it so easy for us all to be together!

I hope you don’t mind that I’ve edited two little movies from our time together — one with very brief cuts from the introductions you each made (sorry that I’ve surely left out some very important stuff here)… At the end of the introduction movie is what little we captured of baren-cover-tieing — sorry my camera filled up before I finished, but maybe this’ll get you started? I’ll film it start to finish the next time I re-cover my baren so you can remember how to do it yourself! The second movie contains some shots of each of you working on SOMEthing, and I’ve also included a slideshow with a bunch of little photos I nabbed of you your prints. Carol and Su — you guys were gone before I was able to photograph your prints — send me some scans and I’ll add them! Hope you enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnfSZZDKT_Y

(introductions and preparation of takenokawa for baren cover)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ocw7fjdst_Y

(workshop participants at work)

I Submitted five of each to the competition. The juror, print collector Reba White Smith, did not jury my prints into the show. Anthony (Tony) Kirk, director of the Center for Contemporary Printmaking, wrote me the kindest rejection letter and asked me to telephone him.

Tony is head of the etching department at Ken Tyler’s famous Tyler Graphics. He is a master printer and has collaborated with major American artists and taught printmaking at a number of universities. On the phone, Tony told me that he was very disappointed that my prints weren’t juried into the show, as he had awarded my print, “Dana”, the Director’s Award. And he emailed me the following:

During our exhibitions I always put together an educational display relating to the current exhibition. We have two glass vitrine cabinets for this and they are placed in the corridor leading from the gallery to the main print studios. I am going to place there some miniature prints from my own collection including a woodcut by George Roualt and a wood engraving by Thomas Bewick. I would like to buy your woodcut of the standing female nude and include it in this display. I was wondering if you could send me a description of your technique and the blocks so that I could include them in the display. <…> I already have two other artist members of our center who have expressed an interest in buying it. Even although it is not included in the juried show, I am confident that I can sell several impressions for you.

Let us hope that when the next miniature print competition rolls around in two years that your submissions will be juried in and that you receive the awards that your work merits. Meanwhile I am very pleased to own one of your works. Please send the material for the display case to my attention at <…>

We will soon be planning our summer workshop brochure which will include a week long workshop in hanga printmaking by artist in residence Paul Furneaux, the artist whose studio/workshop was destroyed in the Edinburgh fire. Perhaps you would be interested in doing a similar workshop in the fall/winter or in spring 2004?

Isn’t that just the nicest rejection you’ve ever seen?!? So it turns out that all three prints will be on display, with their blocks, and with a description of my process and one or two photos of me working. Go figure!

Carved Apallachian cherry wood blocks and printed on Baren Mall Yamaguchi Hosho paper (very nice!). Thirty sheets printed for each print. Completed January, 2003 in about two and a half days of carving and printing.

These are reduction prints, printed by hand using Traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques and materials (except, of course for the reduction part). For the various shades of blue which make up each print, I’d carve each block a bit, print each sheet, carve each block a bit more, print each sheet again a little darker, etc, etc, etc.