Woodblock Wednesday - advanced course week 3 of 3

In between sessions I printed up some more mountains to use as bases for the techniques in the final class: 

Tidying up the block

Surprise discovery on last week's print - embossing in the sky area

Ready to roll

 Some hours later...........

Four prints with slightly less dark mountains

And now, the class. These are some of the more advanced techniques (a glossary is here) -

(it uses very little ink!)

(best done with each colour separately)

(this is what happens without nori)

(this needs drier paper)

This time we focussed on two types of bokashi: atenashi ("without a goal") and hakkake ("emphasised edge") and stencils - kappazuri ("printing without a coat").

For hakkake, the (thicker) nori is mixed with the ink (actually, watercolour) and carefully painted onto the required area -

The same sort of painting directly onto the block is used for atenashi - it too requires a minimal use of ink -

Carol had used a mask to protect the central area of her print when she applied stencils -

 To make the stencils, the block is rubbed with graphite

 a shape is cut out, slightly wider than the area to be covered

dots of nori are applied

 ink is dotted on and spread with the brush

circular strokes to start

finish with vertical strokes

 Result! (the green bokashi had been applied earlier) -

My efforts suffer from haste and enthusiasm, as well as inexperience.

You can see the "clouds" cut in the sky area

After the first inking and printing

After the second ...

... and the third

I'm not unhappy with the sky, but the mountain needs "something"...

Let's try another - using the block with the plain sky, and taking ink away to make a moon -

hmm, it didn't work too well...

trying a little atenashi

trying to get rid of the moon-smudge with another
layer of colour ("bodging")

Stencil -- one stencil printed, another ready to go (the colour on the sky has dried by now) -

The entire block was getting dry, so the printing of the mountain on my final sheet of paper didn't work well at all - something to improve at home -

 All nine prints from the three weeks of classes - some are finished, some are in progress -

Great results from everyone - the same motif (mountain and moon) but such different outcomes -

Lots more information on every aspect of Japanese woodblock printing can be found in David Bull's Encyclopedia of Woodblock Printmaking, available online or as an e-book.