22 May 2019

Woodblock Wednesday - japonisme, and a surprising green

Slight diversion at home while I try out some background textures for another project -
 quick print -
 more cutting, and doing some rubbings -
 cross-hatched background, quite violent to do! -
 yet another combination of loopy ribbon shapes with gouged texture -

Special treat at the class - a talk on Japonisme by Marie-Therese Barrett
The stylistic features that she pointed out were excellent "verbal handles" to use for thinking about what is (or isn't) going on in our own prints, from an aesthetic or compositional view rather than from the process aspect -
no depth, flat colours, outlines
patterns that emphasise the picture plane
cropping created by the frame as a decorative effect
treatment of space - exaggerated viewpoint, uptilted diagonals, strong asymmetrical foreground
changing viewpoints
the 2D picture space as a flat surface to which writing can be added

This two-sided accordion book, brought along by Marie-Therese, shows how each layer of colour changes the print -


  ...as does this one. I was intrigued by the "crow" - which turns out to be a piece of cloth! -

New to me - Henri Riviere's prints of the construction of the Eiffel Tower, at the height of the Japonisme delerium -

 And then to work. Printing  the textured blocks with "indigo" -
 ... and yellow ... the block still had the blue pigment, so it became this vibrant green -
 The morning's results included blue and yellow layers on the 4-layer block -
Half term next week - I have another project that needs a lot of cutting...

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