Mike Lyon

Painting Drawing Printmaking Japanese Woodblock Printing Furniture Lighting

Elizabeth and Rod

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Rod, my friend of 20 years and his girlfriend of two weeks, Elizabeth, came down in early June and allowed me to photograph them them… A LOT of interesting images came from that afternoon, including this one which I loved for its quiet contrast between her light and somewhat inflated figure in motion and his […]

Sarah Reclining

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I think this image is pretty much a wooden sort of homage to Bonnard — another print of the same setup is much more like a Cezanne still-life, but this one harkens to Bonnard in my mind. It’s 22 shades of blue-gray are very close together, and I was primarily interested in contrasting the smooth […]

Sarah

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This is an early portrait of my primary model, Sarah, whose image appears again and again in these pages. This is a detail from an image of her full standing figure made about ten years ago. I have been looking forward to printing this for a long time, but have lacked the skills I felt […]

Mia

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Mia reduction print — carved on my new CNC machine — very interesting thing about this one might be the weirdly reduction carved block?

Shannon and Danielle

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In this print I not only appreciate the quiet moment portrayed, but wished especially to challenge myself with the pinstripe pattern in Danielle’s robe. I was ecstatic when the tiny sections of stripes in each block were accurately registered during printing into a believable image. Whoopee! But the most beautiful areas of the print may […]

Jessica Reclining (front)

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“Jessica Reclining”, February 3, 2004, woodblock print – 17 state reduction, sumi on Iwano Ichibei hosho, Edition of 20  (24 sheets printed). Pigment is sumi — Baren Mall Neri-zumi dense, flat, very concentrated — mixed into rice starch paste. Partially printed with the wonderful new Korokoro Baren also from Baren Mall, and partially with my […]

Self Portrait

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Another mostly failed attempt to realize a full-color woodcut. The source was a water-color self portrait I painted a few years ago. The reduction print was carved from three blocks in various reductions. A ‘yellow’ block was carved and printed three times, a ‘blue’ block was carved and printed four times, and a ‘red’ block […]