Mike Lyon

Painting Drawing Printmaking Japanese Woodblock Printing Furniture Lighting

Print Quarterly Review December 2009

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For various reasons, very modest exhibition catalogues are sometimes worth noting in Print Quarterly. This is the case with Figuring it Out: Prints and Drawings by Mike Lyon (Manhattan, KS, Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University, 2009, 8 pp., 10 col. ills., free), which includes an essay by Bill North. For this photorealist printmaker has made use of his knowledge of computerized technology to create a series of digitally based colour woodcuts.

‘Joanne’ painting 35×21 inches on tinted paper

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Today I completed this (little bit scary) portrait of my Mom (Joanne) painting in white and black Golden Liquid Acrylics over paper tinted blue-gray using dilute sumi and prussian blue applied to the paper by wiping with a sponge. This and the previous painting of ‘Lee’ completed a few days ago are experiments in the […]

Shunga (spring picture)

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Pigment is Prussian Blue pigment suspension and sumi, both from Daniel Smith* mixed into a little home-brewed rice paste I cooked up from Lineco, Inc Neutral pH Pure Rice Starch (McClain’s now has some nice Japanese rice starch, too). I jury rigged a primitive sort of double boiler from my hot water pot heating some […]

Aspen (tiny woodcut)

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This was a ‘rush’ job for Baren Exchange #18 — someone actually had the cajones to drop out over one month AFTER the exchange deadline, and I was the next one on the waiting list. So I said, “give me a week.” and it’s been six days, so 31 of these go in the mail […]

Sarah – shin-hanga bijin mitate

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“Sarah”, 2003, 15.25 x 5.124 inches, Chu-tanzaku Bijin Mitate, Moku-Hanga, color woodcut This is a four basswood block reduction in Winsor & Newton Transparent Yellow, Alizarine Crimson, Prussian Blue, & Sumi with 28 color layers with a dark mica ground. 56 sheets printed in all in three variations. This one has a dark baren-suhi ground […]

Blue Shoes

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My primary model for seven years, Sarah, with her daughter, Lily in her blue jelly flip-flops. Oban Moku-hanga three color (Prussian Blue, Quinacidrone Magenta, Sumi) reduction on three blocks in 19 block states. One basswood block and two shina plywood blocks. On Baren Mall Yamaguchi Hosho paper (very nice!). Fifty sheets printed in all. Twenty-three […]

Music

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This is an example of the prints I produced for Baren Forum’s 13th Exchange, “Music”. The prints are chuban, paper about 10 1/2 inches high. 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 […]

Heaven’s Gate

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“Endangered Species” print exchange for Baren Forum Traditional hanga technique. I carved eight blocks, four from shina plywood, and four from birch plywood. I used three Windsor/Newton watercolors, transparent yellow, quinacidrone magenta, prussian blue, plus prepared sumi and printed VERY dry on VERY lightweight kitakata paper. I wasn’t up to carving the tiny little words, […]