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

Baren Digest               Friday, 27 March 1998       Volume 02 : Number 107

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From: Blueman <blueman@pantek.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 08:20:28 -0500
Subject: [Baren 507] Re: Baren Digest V2 #106 

April, I am so glad you told me about left handed and right handed 
tools.  I am left handed!  Also I appreciate what you have said 
about size of blade.  Catalogs can be confusing when everything's
being touted just the thing you need. 

Gayle

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From: Matthew.W.Brown@VALLEY.NET (Matthew W Brown)
Date: 27 Mar 98 01:01:03 EST
Subject: [Baren 508] Re: Knives and paper 

Baren,
	Gayle, April might be a better 'leader' for you on these carving
particulars than myself, she is going a more traditional way I think whereas
I've gone my own route.
 		Somewhere on my site (perhaps in The Manual which is in The
Studio), there are catalogue numbers for the knife and gouges. The knife I use
has a cover, excellent steel, and is about $70, but there is an inexpensive
knife for $15 also with a cover that works pretty well (lot nicer to hold than
an exacto knife!). It is a bigger blade than the traditional "to", and I like
being able to use it like you would a chisel at times.
  On dampening: certainly this color woodprint stuff teaches patience and
planning (you need to 'plan' your binges a bit ahead of time). But. . . how old
are you? Perhaps at a certain age it is O.K. to begin planning our 'binges' a
bit ahead of time: 4 - 6 hours, or the night before! Actually for some proof
printing 2 hours is probably fine; print quality seems to depend a lot on
evenness of moisture in the paper and the re-stacking seems pretty key for
this.

Matt

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From: David Bull <davebull@asahi-net.email.ne.jp>
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 20:39:02 +0900
Subject: [Baren 509] Re: the slow pace of printmaking ... 

Gayle wrote:
> This method is probably not going to work for an impatient person
> like me.  When I have the urge to work, I feel waiting takes away from
> the charge.  

Gayle, I certainly don't want to 'put you down', but when I read those
words I was really a bit shocked.  Some forms of art, sketching from a
model for example, live or die by the 'live energy' that the artist
brings to the immediate work, but making a woodblock print does not
usually work that way.

I say 'usually' because it _would_ be possible to ... grab a plank /
slash a design into it / splash pigment over it / slap any old piece of
paper on top / press it with the ball of your hand ... etc. etc. all in
the most energetic way, and produce a spectacularly vivid woodblock
print.   It would be possible - and if you were a 'Picasso', then I
suspect that this is the way you should work, and forget all the
'instructions' that people offer ...

But there is another approach to the creation of art - (and using
another 'big name' as an example) think of Michelangelo and his basilica
of St. Peters ... years and years in the planning, decade after decade
in the execution ... etc. etc.   

Woodblock printmaking falls somewhere between these two extremes.  On
the one hand, it needs a 'brilliant spark' of inspiration for the
design.  But it requires hours - days - weeks of careful work to turn
that design into an actual physical object.

It would seem that not many people have the proper temperament for this.

I don't know anything about you, or about your age or temperament, but I
would hope that you can find some way to combine both these aspects of
the work in one person.

I don't want to ring my own bell here, but can simply say that when I
was 'somewhat' younger I was an impatient and impulsive person.  I was
so impatient that I was too stupid even to stop and take the time to
sharpen my knife when it was dull.  "Just keep going - it'll cut 'OK'
..."  As for waiting until the paper was properly moistened -
impossible!  

But as time went by, I got a bit tired of seeing all my efforts wasted. 
Ragged lines cut with a dull knife ...  Smeared colours printed on
semi-wet paper ...  I started to learn that those short cuts were no
short cuts at all; they were steps _backwards_.

Gayle, please don't take these comments negatively, because I'm
enthusiastic about the sort of things you have said to us and showed us
so far.  You seem truly interested in this work, and I hope you will
continue, and progress, and make beautiful prints.  But if you can't
even wait a few hours for the paper to become properly moist and soft,
then how are you ever going to be able to start a project that won't be
completed until ten years have passed?    

Whenever I'm interviewed about my work, the reporter inevitably asks
some question like 'How can you stand to do such slow paced and delicate
work?', and my answer is always the same ...

'If you like doing something, isn't it _better_ if it takes a long
time?'


Dave

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From: David Bull <davebull@asahi-net.email.ne.jp>
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 20:45:57 +0900
Subject: [Baren 510] Re: 'Sinistral' tools ... 

April wrote:
> P.S. Don't forget that Japanese knives (to) come in left and right handed
> versions! Be sure to get the right one! 

Some of us don't want to get the ... right ... one!   Some of us want
the ... left ... one!

But actually, the blades are the same; it is just the way that the tip
is sharpened that creates a left or right model.  Usui-san (the man who
makes my blades) refuses to 'hear' my oft-repeated protestation that I
am left-handed, and continues to send my blades chopped off at an angle
suitable for right-handers, so each time I start a new one I have to
take out my file, lop off the end, and re-grind it the opposite way.

Getting carving tools thus isn't a problem for lefties.  It's in the
printing that the real trouble comes ...

Dave

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End of Baren Digest V2 #107
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