Woodblock Wednesday - colour, paper, ikat

After last week's struggles with "thick" and "thin" paper, I went to Shepherds and bought five sheets of different japanese papers, then cut a tranche off the ends of each, labelled them, and mixed up some blues ... and did a little printing on Sunday -

first layer, cerulean

add the second layer, prussian blue

the third layer is indigo

Left to right -

Iwami white, 30gsm, 635x940, £8.25 (the least "white" of the papers!)

Shoji 48gsm, 620x920, £2.95

Mingeshi white 48gsm, 640x970mm, £7.00, to be discontinued

Tosa shi 54gsm, 610x910, £4.20

Tosa washi 28gsm, 620x940, £4.20

(prices do not include VAT)

Amid the struggle to "get everything perfect" I hope that something is going right, somewhere! What's going wrong, or rather, what am I so dissatisfied with - is it the colour, or is it the cutting - not enough of the first layer showing? 

Trying to be analytical by looking at some "rough prints"-

Print the second and third layers (at the sides, printed on typing paper)
The second layer alone is in the middle

 The state of the desk as I left the room on Monday...

Using the smaller baren helped. Taking lots of colour samples helped. The japanese papers are interesting to work with. The registration system for the blocks needs improving, as does "messiness" on the print edges.

As for the colours in the photos - they were taken at different times of day, and night.

Next, I'll try doing the layers in various colours rather than shades of blue or grey. Be a little wild, why not?


Now to Wednesday. As this is halfterm at Morley there was no woodblock printing class, but Veronica came and we printed. Her subject is pumpkins, and she's using four layers of colour that mix in some places. I love seeing how she continually improves the print by reassessing the outcomes of each printing session. For me, this extra session was a chance to try out the little ikat blocks.

Printing in progress (tea and chocolate biscuits are essential) -

My results - quite a lot of overprinting, and much time spent working out novel methods of alignment/registration - really, it's easier to do it right first time -

Printing the "round squares" has me thinking of the next step with this block - filling in the middle, perhaps. The double images are prototypes for a "japanese book" with ikat fabric covers, which may or may not happen soon.

At the end of the morning -