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

Baren Digest                Friday, 4 June 1999        Volume 07 : Number 583

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From:  (Jan Telfer)
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 10:26:28 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Baren 4518] A shy New Member 

Dear David, Thank you for including my prints on the Who
is Baren  Members' Page. Thank you too to Wanda and Gayle
for your welcome. It took  a lot of encouragement from my
fellow workers (Speech and Occupational  therapists at the
Independent Living Centre) for me to actually 
participate.  But, believe me it is exciting to see one's
work on the  Net! I am an Occupational Therapist,
Calligrapher and Printmaker (mainly  screenprinting and
more recently specialising in woodblocks).

I am a Western Australian working on Japanese Ply wood
boards with  Japanese tools.  My teacher and mentor is
Japanese Contemporary Woodblock  Printmaker, Hiroshi
Tomihari who works in the same materials in Oyama,  Japan
and is on his third visit here to WA..  The wood is a
Japanese wild  cherry called Yamazakura. The ink is black
oil base etching ink and I  clean up the ink residue with
newspaper before using Mineral Turpentine,  which is
becoming a bit of a "no, no" in Australia (alternatively
use  vegetable oil).  My print sizes are A3 (45cm x 30
cm). "The Pride of  Australia" is the only one at 23.5cm x
30cm. I have only done about 12  woodblocks..that's
it...but I have come from a lino printing background.

I have started to incorporate Calligraphy with my
woodblocks in my  current ones and at present keeping with
Australian themes.  Thank you  for your welcome.. your
Forum is very encouraging and inspiring. 

Thank  you, Jan

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From: Barbara Mason <bemason@concentric.net>
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 1999 08:40:01 -0700
Subject: [Baren 4519] Paper.... 

Gayle,
I know what you mean about paper, I am such a newbie that I don't know
which one to buy, Lee and I were in a wonderful Japanese Paper shop in
Montreal and I looked at them all, but couldn't make a good decision so
didn't get anything. Also, I would have had to hand carry it home which
is a problem on the plane. I also reasoned that Oregon is closer to
Japan than Montreal, so it should be cheaper here, right? Maybe.

Welcome Again to all new members, We certainly do need a list with the
member and country........When you come up for air one of these days
Dave, can you find the time to do this? I would volunteer to put it
together if I had the info.

To all -
We workshop people of Graham's will make sure there are daily postings
and let you know what we are learning. I have never done woodblock, so
assume I will be getting off to the right start by taking this class. I
have no bad habits to break.
Graham sound's like a serious taskmaster, so if you don't hear from me
it will be because I am still in the studio in the wee hours practicing.

Barbara M

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From: Graham Scholes <gscholes@home.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 17:27:43 -0700
Subject: [Baren 4522] Re: A shy New Member 

Welcome Jan Telfer,

There was no need to tell us you are from Australia.....your accent gives
you away.  (<;
It's like me a Canadian.....eh.....  The eh is the clue.

At any rate welcome aboard.
Had the opportunity to look in at your site and found the imagery very
interesting.   I was wondering about the paper.  You mention other specs
but nothing about the paper you print on. Have you every printed with
waterbase pigments?  Sure is a snap to clean up and you can get equally
interesting results...eh.

Graham

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From: Graham Scholes <gscholes@home.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 18:02:54 -0700
Subject: [Baren 4523] technical question (or two) 

James wrote....

>I'd like to print the block as it presently stands in my usual fashion.
>After that edition is complete, I thought I might try and seal the block
>with some sort of varnish for the water-based portion. ...
>Does anyone see any problems with proceeding like this?  Any suggestions?

Dave made a suggestion which is valid.  I would suggest you go ahead and
varnish the plate to even up the hold out of moisture. You need to mix the
varnish 50/50 with solvent thinners.  In this way you will not seal the
wood but it will resist taking on a lot of moisture and swelling.  All of
my plates are done this way.   Actually I put on two coats.   One on the
new uncut block and then another coat after I have carved the plate.  This
seals the newly carved untreated wood.

To prepare the varnish plate to accept the waterbase pigment, you will have
to prime the plate with about 1/2 dozen or more inkings and printing using
newsprint. This gets the paste/pigment into the grain and past the surface
of the plate. At first you may notice some beading of pigment on the
surface but more paste and numberous inking/printing will eliminate that.

>One more thing:  I don't own a baren and don't forsee that I will pick
>one up in the very near future.  I normally print with a bamboo spoon,
>but on dry paper.  Could someone list the relative comparisons of baren
>vs. spoon on moist washi?

Consideration has to be given to the paper when determining the instrument
you use.  When using Hosho paper I rather suspect that a bamboo spoon may
cause marking on the paper if not kept very flat.  The dampness of the
paper makes it soft and susceptible to marking.  With a baren you cannot
mark the paper as it glides on all the little nodes (shin) under the bamboo
sheath (takenokawa).

Graham

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From: Graham Scholes <gscholes@home.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 19:23:54 -0700
Subject: [Baren 4524] Fish 

The fish are here.   6 sharks.
Now where did I see information about how to prepare them.

Looked in the Baren .....nil.
Maybe I didn't look in the right place.

Someone out there have any suggestions.

Regards,

Graham

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From: Jack Reisland <reislandj001@hawaii.rr.com>
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 1999 21:54:38 +0000
Subject: [Baren 4525] Re: Fish 

Graham Scholes wrote:
> The fish are here.   6 sharks.
> Now where did I see information about how to prepare them.

I just did this with a large piece of a shark. Since I got it already
somewhat skinned, you will have to work that part out for yourself, but
see if you can end up with pieces running lengthwise, maybe 4" wide and
8"-10" long. At the skinning point, it is more important to not cut any
hole in the skins, so don't worry about having too much meat left the
skin. It is easier to remove once you've got the skin off and laying
flat. Lay the skin on a flat surface, skin side down, and carefully
scrape/cut the rest of the meat off with a SHARP knife. There were some
pretty tough bands of cartilage on mine where the muscle attached to the
skin, you have to be careful there. I found that I had to resharpen my
knife a couple of times. When it seemed reasonably clean, I put it skin
side down on a board, and stretched and stapled (with a staple gun) from
the middle edges to the ends all around the edges. It stretches quite a
bit, and will be a lot larger than the size you cut off the fish. It
dried in a day or two, and stayed nice and flat when I pulled all the
staples. Next I will stick it down to a piece of wood (something
reasonably water resistant, since I gather it has to get washed now and
again) with a waterproof glue, and a few brass brads just for good
measure. I'm planning to use panel adhesive, sort of like contact
cement, and clamping it down flat with another board on top until the
glue dries. Now that I think of it, I will glue that down before you get
yours ready to go, and I can tell you how it worked, if you like. It's a
all a bit of work, are you planning to do all 6 sharks yourself? You can
freeze the skins once you get them off the fish and before you scrape
them clean, so you don't have to do it all in one day.

Jack R.

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End of Baren Digest V7 #583
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