Thanks SO much to artist, Peregrine Honig (also see HERE), who bounced purposefully for two hours on the small trampoline in my studio as we chatted and photographed hundreds of mostly very blurry images while she wore her fabulous black and silver sequined mini dress with matching bunny eared hat!!

You may open a higher resolution version in a new window by CLICKING HERE

It’s a bit difficult for me to illustrate such a long image on a web page, so here’s an experiment suggested by Scott Goldberg — I’ve rotated the drawing vertically and enabled a script so that as you move your mouse over the image below, an enlargement window should appear and you can magnify any area you please.

You can make the window larger or smaller and magnify or reduce the image in the window by holding down your mouse button and moving left and right and up and down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C38ADTUEJlo

Bill North and I had some interesting discussions about ‘what is a print’ in connection with this edition. Initially I’d intended to print each sheet in colors, then draw on top in register. In the end, I chose to draw in red, blue, and black inks to produce what is to my knowledge the very first fine-art edition of drawn drawings (or prints)… In the broadest sense of the word, I think, the noun ‘print’ is synonymous with the noun ‘multiple.’ But, since this image was created on a single sheet of paper, roughly 5 x 12 feet, even the word ‘multiple’ is subject to question. BEFORE I tore the sheet apart, it was most definitely a pen and ink drawing. Once I’d torn the sheet into 45 pieces, each about 10×15 inches, it became an edition of ‘prints’ I think, even though each is an original drawing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UQz0LdcRgU

"Jessica Paper Doll" 2009, 10x15 inches, pen and ink on paper

example of a 19th Century Japanese paper doll woodcut

a contact sheet of the photos I considered for the paper doll drawing(s)

one of the (many) late mock-ups for the drawings

a sheet of 10 proofs with various approaches to the drawing - about a month of work from the first to the last

final drawing with red ink begins

final drawing with blue ink underway (blue on red)

5x12 foot drawing completed and ready to tear out the 45 'prints'

I’ve successfully moved my ShopBot CNC machine from the 3rd to the 1st floor… After cutting a large vacuum plenum to hold 4×8 foot by quarter-inch plywood sheets flat and solidly in place on the machine, I experimented yesterday by carving the dozen blocks for my prints for Baren Forum Mythical Beasts Exchange (#27).

My kids gave me a nifty and TINY little all-digital video camera for XMAS, and I used it to shoot a 2 1/2 minute video of the computer-guided tool in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z2NEUO1lSc

You may want to turn down your volume as the router is very loud and obnoxious… What you’ll see are some brief cuts of V-bit carving to outline the printing shapes, then clearing outside the V-carved areas with a 1/4″ down-spiral — I’ve also shown a couple of views of the control screen — the first shows each line of program code as it’s executed — I think we’re at about line 14,000 in the shot — later there’s a view showing the cutting head position in X (length) Y (width) and Z (height) coordinates.

The blocks turned out quite nicely! I’ll be printing in pinks and greens for this one…

'Hannya' January 22, 2006, chuban (about 10x8) woodcut from twelve blocks for barenforum.org exchange 27 (mythical beasts)

“I was most impressed with Anthony‘s boldness and directness — the content itself — its scale, its lack of sentiment, the graphic beauty of the contrasts. the immediacy, I guess, of the image, married to a technique which seemed to my uneducated eyes to perfectly support that image. It is so monumental as well, which stood out among works that had to be limited to a certain dimension. Most people make small or medium sized works when the dimensions are medium-scaled. Yours was monumental in a really satisfying way.” Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, Curator of American and Contemporary Art Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art The University of Texas at Austin

"Anthony", April 29, 2004, 30 x 21 inches, woodblock print from 15 cherry plywood blocks, dry pigment and neri-zumi in paste of rice starch on Iwano Ichibei hosho (permanent collection of McNeese State University)

the 15 blocks for Anthony (1st attempt)

The McNeese National Works On Paper exhibition (click link for article) of 40 prints was selected by juror Annette DiMeo Carlozzi from over 800 entries. My 30 x 21 inch woodblock print “Anthony” received the “Bank One Purchase Award” of $1,200, entered the permanent collection of McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and was reproduced on the cover of the exhibition catalog.

This is an example of the prints I produced for BarenForum‘s Exchange #14(a). It is a Japanese technique wood block print, oban size (about 15 inches high) on hand made, unsized gampi paper.

Blue Shoes, Aug 2002, 15 x 10 inches, reduction in 23 states of three blocks on Yamaguchi hosho paper, 50 sheets printed

This is a reduction print, printed by hand using Traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques and materials (except, of course for the reduction part). Traditionally, each of the 19 blocks for this print would have been carved by hand from separate pieces of wood. But in order to save time and material and increase risk, I carved only three blocks — one for the pinks, one for the blues, and one for the grays. So each of the 52 sheets of paper was printed at least 19 times (not all papers received the wood grain).

For the various shades of blue and pink and gray which make up the 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.

The print shown is a reduction print, printed by hand using Traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques and materials (except, of course for the reduction part). Traditionally, each of the fifteen blocks for this print would have been carved by hand. But in order to save time and increase risk, I carved only one block and printed all the sheets, then carved it some more, reprinted each sheet, etc., etc. fifteen times!

Sometimes this method is called “Suicide Printing” — perhaps because, if you make a mistake, you wish you were dead — but more likely because each state of the block is destroyed by the subsequent carving, so there is no going back to pull additional prints.

"Music", May 2002, 10.5 x 7.5 chuban, woodcut reduction (moku-hanga) on Yamaguchi Hosho

my messy workspace, baren at lower left

dampening the block after the third carving

applying pigment into rice paste

brushing out the pigment

printing with baren

states 3 and 2 in my damp stack

after the third printing

In the image of my messy workspace near the top of the gallery, my baren is at the lower left, sitting on some oily cloth. The red rag above is for absorbing excess moisture from the water brush you can see sitting on top of my plastic water container. Hanging down at the top of the picture are two much more expensive brushes used for applying size and water, but for this kind of printing, I prefer my old $1.25 cheap-o brush. To the right of the baren is my block, already printed several times, above the block is the brush I used for printing. to the right of the block are small dishes containing the Prussian Blue pigment and rice paste and a ‘plant mister’ I use to keep my paper stack damp. The paper is out of the picture to the left on an “L” shaped extension so it is easy to reach. I print standing up.

I had already cut a bunch of mahogany plywood triangles to adorn the big ‘moon window’ in the room and had a bunch of  triangles left over. I attached them to 3″ squares of similar plywood to make movable tiles for block printing. I made a frame which held 108 of the tiles in two parallel grids each of which was 18 tiles long by 3 tiles wide. I arranged the tiles in the grids, inked them quickly with sumi, and printed them on a thin Japanese paper (Okawara Scroll). Then I rearranged the tiles, re-inked them, and reprinted the same papers. I repeated this process a number of times until I was satisfied with the depth and range of tones, and the results are pictured below.

The printing frame was so beautiful in the end! I permanently attached the tiles with short brads, framed the thing, and placed it in the room opposite the prints, which I had pasted onto linen and hung like Japanese scrolls.

the triangle blocks arranged in pattern, framed and mounted in room at UMB (collection UMB)

the triangle blocks hanging in room at UMB

two woodcut mono prints mounted as scrolls in room at UMB (collection UMB)

two woodcut monoprints mounted as scrolls in room at UMB

Untitled, 1999, 54 x 9 inches, woodcut monoprint from triangle tile set (collection of artist)

All colored areas in the prints were printed from a single block printed and reduced by carving through many printings.  First the areas to remain white were removed by carving the block. then the block was printed in pale yellow. Then the areas which were to remaining pale yellow were removed from the block by carving and the block was printed in a deeper shade of yellow/orange. etc.

During printing, I experimented with different inks and papers. Two printed examples showing color and paper variations are reproduced below.

"Dog Dream", 1996, 7 x 8.5 inches, color woodcut reduction print, example 1 showing variations in printing and paper.

"Dog Dream", 1996, 7 x 8.5 inches, color woodcut reduction print, example 2 showing variations in printing and paper.

"Dog Dream", 1996, key drawing in graphite and colored pencil

"Traffic II", 1995, 9 x 9 inches, plexi-block print, Rives BFK paper

"Traffic", 1995, 9 x 9 inches, plexi-block print, Rives BFK paper

The cubes could be set in four ways (I didn’t print with the band-sawed sides) to print 100%, 75%, 50%, or 25% (and I used 3/8″ slices to leave a square blank). Then I arranged the cubes into grids using a printing frame I made for the purpose and printed.

In 1995 I was experimenting with ‘strings’ of repeating numbers, spiralling the sequence of numbers around a center point, and later mapping colors onto the numbers to better understand the patterns produced. For this print, I counted from 0 up to 7 and from 7 back to 0 beginning in the middle and moving down first, then counter-clockwise (on the print), changing direction as each corner was reached. A ’0′ printed 100% (black), then 1 & 2 printed 75%, then 3 & 4 printed 50%, then 5 & 6 printed 25%, and finally ’7′ printed 0% (white).

The color version was part of the 1995 Hand Print Press portfolio., the blocks were arranged, printed in black, and then I rotated each block 90 degrees and printed the arrangement again in order to produce the black hatches, or squares which appear in the print. In the color version, each color was printed using the un-machined (100%) face, and then the black was printed twice as already described.

I find the pattern produced extremely interesting — it’s easy to see there’s some sort of regularity, but difficult to understand exactly what it is, and I like that. I love that the final spiral (outer row) is symmetrical in several ways.