Mike Lyon

Painting Drawing Printmaking Japanese Woodblock Printing Furniture Lighting

Small drawings with square spirals

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Why spirals? Because I can vary the density of my lines in any area without cross-hatching and without lifting the pen. This lends itself to the kind of repeating procedures (program) I’ve been thinking about for quite some time. But curving spirals (where the radius of the circle being drawn continuously expands from or contracts […]

Large drawing (Hal) with nested squares

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One issue with my simple drawing tools is that, for the most part, the mark produced is uniform in width and color (one exception is a brush. The brush can be pushed into the surface to make a thicker mark or pulled out to leave a thinner one). It occurred to me that, already having […]

32 Small drawings with characters

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July through November of 2018 I made a slew of small drawings in ink on paper using the two AxiDraw machines. From time to time as I work, I’ll edit and modify my program code so that the way I produce images changes. Most coders I’ve talked with are careful to archive each state of […]

Peregrine Bunny

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For several months I’d been immersed in a large commission piece for a very large corporation. It was a big project and was required to sign an NDA / non-disclosure agreement. There was a lot of back and forth as a number of executives added their input, taste, requirements to the pot and that made […]

Linda

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This drawing was made on a full sheet of Rives BFK Black paper, using white ink and the AxiDraw. The image area is 11 x 8 inches, more or less centered in the sheet. I like the big black space and how Linda’s head floats in there.

Dad and Linda: first small AxiDraw drawings

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The AxiDraw is a simple, precise, and versatile pen plotter, capable of writing or drawing on almost any flat surface. It can write with fountain pens, permanent markers, and many other writing implements to handle an endless variety of applications. Its unique design features a writing head that extends beyond the machine, making it possible […]

Daily Gazette: The Precision of the Mokuhanga Art Form

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The Daily Gazette: When Credibility MattersJanuary 4, 2018Schenectady On Exhibit: The precision of the mokuhanga art form New at Crowell and West Galleries at Union CollegeBy Indiana Nash | January 4, 2018 The exhibition, which went up on Jan. 3 at the Crowell and West Galleries at Union College, delves into the traditional Japanese woodblock […]

Exhibition: Mokuhanga: Impressions Past and Present

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Curated by Sandy Wimer and Sheri Lullo January 3 – March 13, 2018 Feigenbaum Center for Visual ArtsCrowell and West GalleriesUnion College Mokuhanga: Impressions Past and Present Mokuhanga refers to the traditional Japanese technique of hand-printing images from carved blocks of wood. Moku means “wood,” and hanga which is a combination of the words for […]

Exhibition: IMC Hawaii Presentation

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My presentation to the International Mokuhanga Association Conference at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu September 28, Thursday – October 1, Sunday, 2017. Keynote presentations by Mayumi Oda (artist), Seiichi Kondo (former ambassador), and Richard Notkin (artist) can be viewed at 2017.mokuhanga.org/keynotes/

Two small woodcuts using a wedged registration jig

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Many mokuhanga (Japanese technique woodcut) printers are using an L-shaped kento registration jig. This is so each block can be carved without registration kento and a corner pushed into the L-shaped jig during printing. One disadvantage of this method is that the block and jig can easily shift during handling and printing so registration is […]