[Baren]: The mailing list / discussion forum for woodblock printmaking.

Baren Digest            Wednesday, 17 December 1997    Volume 01 : Number 017

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From: Ray Esposito <brassring@brassring.org>
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 19:03:15 -0500
Subject: [Baren 95] General Questions 

This group gets more posts in one day then PrintsL does in a month.  All of
this is great.  

As a brand new "wood cutter" I have a lot of questions but most of you seem
to be so far ahead of me that I am somewhat embarassed to ask what might
seem like dumb "new guy" questions.  To keep from being hit too hard I will
ask two, one about the group and one on woodcuts.

This group covers a lot of territority.  I am learning a great deal.  But a
lot of posts are about Japanese woodcuts and color woodcuts in particular.
Does that mean that those of us who are beginning by just cutting bunny
rabbits in black ink have no place here?

The technical question concerns pulling prints.  Since I do not have a
press or access to one (I am looking for a small used -//cheap// - tabletop
press), I need to use a baren.  Are there particular woods that work better
when printing by hand and how important is equipment to producing a good
print?  In other words, is a baren a baren?  Does the paper play a major or
minor role in producing good hand pulled prints?

My artistic experience the past thirty years has been as a collector.  My
artistic talents lately have been with mixed media monoprints.  I have
always loved wood and lino cut prints and want to explore the
possibilities.  With no schools or ways to train in the Central Florida
area, I am relying on this list for help.  My first effort with any kind of
cutting was a linocut.  It was a self portrait.  My friends tell me they
did not know I looked like a bunny rabbit.  (Thus the reference above.)

Thanks everyone and keep those great posts coming.

Ray Esposito
President/Founder
The Brass Ring Society
500 Macaw Lane, No. 5
Fern Park, Florida  32730
e-mail:	     brassring@brassring.org
WEB SITE:    http://www.brassring.org/brassring  	

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From: David Bull <davebull@asahi-net.email.ne.jp>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 21:01:46 +0900
Subject: [Baren 96] Re: General Questions 

Ray (bunny rabbit) Esposito,

> I am somewhat embarrassed to ask what might
> seem like dumb "new guy" questions.

I'm sure you know better than to be hesitant about this.  All of us in
this group are climbing a ladder; some are still on the first rung, some
are a little bit higher.  The ladder has no 'top' ...

(Actually that's a bad analogy; implying that this whole art/craft is a
sequential series of step-like improvements.  It's nothing like that at
all; it goes off in every direction at once.  And Art/Pleasure/Beauty
are just as much to be found on the first rung as on those 'higher up'.)


> Does that mean that those of us who are beginning by just cutting bunny
> rabbits in black ink have no place here?

You've touched on something very fundamental to woodblock printmaking
here.  Matsuzaki-san, one of the printers I visit sometimes, was telling
me about the 'old days' and the kind of work that an apprentice was
given for training.  Monochrome black prints.  Month after month after
month that is all that they were allowed to touch.  No colours, no
gradations, no embossings, none of that non-essential stuff.  Just
black.  The idea was that if he could figure out how to print black
properly, when he then moved on to colours, he would understand what to
do.

I believe in this idea in an 'intellectual' way, but I have been totally
incapable of disciplining myself to do such a thing, and as a result, I
am still having a great deal of trouble with black.  If you are working
with black line images rather than coloured ones, you certainly don't
have anything to be ashamed of, and if you get good at it, it is we who
will soon be asking you the questions.  

(And if Matsuzaki-san could read all the stuff we are talking about on
[Baren], I am sure that he would shake his head and think "Those guys! 
Talk talk talk ...  Not one of them could even print the lettering on
wrapping paper properly ...")


> I am looking for a small used press ...
> In other words, is a baren a baren?  
> Does the paper play a major or minor role in producing 
> good hand pulled prints?

I thought you said 'two' questions!

Woodblock printmaking as it is practiced in many places has by now been
so heavily influenced by the Japanese tradition, that it is sometimes
difficult to remember that there are other ways of making prints.

In a gross simplification:

Japanese tradition: wood cut on the 'plank', knife used to cut lines,
printing by hand with a 'baren' (no press), water-based pigments (no
inks).  (known as 'woodcuts' or 'woodblock prints')

European tradition: wood cut on the end grain, burin used to 'incise'
lines, printed in a press, oil-based inks.  (known as 'wood engravings')

These two types are pretty clear, but of course over the years, they
have merged together and now many prints are made using some combination
of these techniques.


For someone like yourself just exploring this craft, I think you will
get good results from using 'plank' wood, using a knife to cut, and
using an inexpensive 'student' baren to pull some impressions.  This is
of course my Japanese bias showing, and other members of the group will
certainly say something different.

But for this kind of work, no press is necessary, no difficult-to-use
and difficult-to-clean inks, and no special cutting tools.  A plank of
anything from your woodyard, a cutter knife, a tube of watercolour, and
if you have no baren, the back of a rice scoop or spoon for printing.  

And yet, despite the 'cheap' nature of these materials, the results will
still be beautiful.  Notice that I didn't mention paper in that list. 
You asked:
> Does the paper play a major or minor role?

And the answer here is most definitely 'major'.  The beauty of woodblock
prints derives from the way that the pigments are driven deep into the
body of the paper, not left sitting 'on top' as in many other
processes.  If you use a paper not so suitable for this, the results
will be at best uneven, and at worst a blotchy mess.  

So I don't care what wood, what tools, what pigments ... but I very much
care what paper you use.

My personal choices would be a Japanese 'hosho' or 'torinoko', and I've
just seen some prints made by Matt on what I think he said is a
'French-made cotton rag paper, the Rives stuff', (can Matt confirm this
...?) which have absorbed the pigments beautifully.

To the group: you all made recommendations to Keith about where to buy
knives; where can Ray get these papers most easily?

So please don't worry if you can't find that cheap press you were
looking for; you can easily get started in this craft without that kind
of investment. Get started on carving something, and while that's under
way, send off somewhere for some good paper.  When the carving's 'done',
do a bunch of tests on some cheap junk copy paper, just to get your
hands moving in the generally right way, and then try some of the 'real'
paper.  I don't think you'll be disappointed.  

Whether or not it will look like a bunny rabbit, I can't say, but it
will certainly be a 'beautiful' bunny rabbit!

Dave

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End of Baren Digest V1 #17
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