[Baren]: The mailing list / discussion forum for woodblock printmaking. Baren Digest Thursday, 25 November 1999 Volume 09 : Number 795 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dutch Stowe Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 06:14:31 -0800 Subject: [Baren 6790] Re: New e-card site Dave Thanks for sharing the new e-card site with us I was so impressed with the quality of the cards I immediately sent one to my best friend and I was on the phone with him when he received all he could say was WOW! (sent him one of the Japanese prints) Dutch ------------------------------ From: Gayle Wohlken Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 09:46:32 -0500 Subject: [Baren 6792] Re: Baren Digest V9 #794 Josephine, you mentioned recycling paper (by making paper from it) that has been printed and rejected for one reason or another. This would not apply to oil based prints would it? It seems the pigment and oil would make a brittle paper? Gayle ------------------------------ From: Bella1yopp@aol.com Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 11:45:38 EST Subject: [Baren 6794] I've just got something to say I've been so busy with Thanksgiving stuff that I have been ignoring my Baren mail. Shame on me. But I am now almost caught up. >But Santa Fe, if anyone ever gets around to going there, is an art >lover's paradise. >Maria, I agree with you that Santa Fe is artist and gallery heaven. they >must have 100 galleries there. You can see a tremendous amount of good >art there. And I agree with both of you. I talked a friend of mine (we were doing a mini road trip) into going there for a day. I thought it would be a bright and colorful city with a bunch of desert and indian art. But it was a city of tans and beige with all kinds of wonderful art. The Geogia O'Keefe museum was great. And the Museum of Folk Art was amazing. Oh,and of course all of the galleries in between. Josephine, I too love making paper. I save everything, flowers (dried), onion and garlic skins, any thing I can to put in paper. But alas, I have not made any in so long. I don't have the equipment... but after reading your post I thought I can do that. A whisk? How long does that take? The blender is a wonderful too but I can't imagine trying to make good strong paper in it. A whisk would be more like the Hollander beater. How large are the sheets you pull? I was spoiled when learning how to make paper at the Women's Studio Workshop. Now that I am doing the grad school search, I am hoping for a school with papermaking facilities. Does anyone know of any? So far I have the Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison and the Univ of Georgia. - -Amanda Yopp P.S. No one is going to win the computer art vs. "real" art "discussion." But I will say that when attending college this was quite a controversy. Teachers were now having to consider computer art in their classes. Is it acceptable or not. They were having to change their philosophies on art. I still don't know what I think about it. At first, I thought this is cheating and I would hate having my work next to someone who just morfed the Mona Lisa (and seriously thought they were being original). But now after being out of that environment and having a photographer boyfriend (I have great slides!) who uses programs like Photoshop... I see the miracles it performs on a pimply teenage boy who wants to be a model. ------------------------------ From: Wanda Robertson Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 10:27:35 -0800 Subject: [Baren 6797] Re: Wet Paper, New greeting card site ... Dave wrote: > These numbers are what works for Graham, but for my taste they are a > little low. Graham is looking for quite lightly toned colour, with a > little 'speckle' scattered through it for atmospheric effect. If you > were after a more solid colour, (of the kind we saw in 'Maria's' print > this summer, you would need maybe double this amount ... Dave, do you mean double the amount of paste? Or double of everything? I have tried several methods of getting that light, smooth, even color in some of my experimental prints - and it is really difficult to do. I have also tried your suggestion to mix the paste & pigment in a separate container & _then_ brush it on the block. Getting paste & pigment just right is really hard to do consistently! Wanda, Still combing the encyclopedia and the archives for tips relevant to my own problem areas! Well, hanga problem areas - to heck with the rest of my problems.....:-) ------------------------------ From: Graham Scholes Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 11:06:47 -0800 Subject: [Baren 6798] Re: Wet Paper, New greeting card site ... >Dave, do you mean double the amount of paste? Double the amount of paste only. You want to get a reasonably thick consistency to the pigment/paste mix Dave indicated that I go for the sparkle effect....true, however in the amount of paste I mentioned I can get a smooth lay of colour. What is so hard to express is the size of gob of paste. I will take a picture and put it up on the web. Then we will be able to compare sparkle and nonsparkle amounts of paste. I have always had two containers and dab each onto the plate and let the inking brush to the mixing. What paper are you using? Graham ------------------------------ From: "barebone" Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 11:26:48 -0800 Subject: [Baren 6800] Re: Baren Digest V9 #794 Barbara mentioned that we live in the land of rain, rain and more rain and paper might take a while to dry. I make paper here regularly and it doesn't take any longer to dry than most prints - if you couch it properly. If I make it in the morning, then I take it out of the felts and scatter it all over the studio and leave the heat on overnight. By the next morning it will be dry and can then be stacked and weighted to flatten. I leave it under the weights until I : a)remember that its there, or b) need it to print on. Hope the ankle is better, Barbara - I turned mine coming back down the driveway from getting the paper this morning - not enough to cripple me for long, tho - at least not enough to get out of doing a turkey. Sharri ------------------------------ From: Graham Scholes Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 12:33:19 -0800 Subject: [Baren 6801] Getting Pasted..... I talked about paste size relative to what? This should clear it up. Go to http://members.home.net/woodblocks/Pasted.html Graham ------------------------------ From: Julio.Rodriguez@walgreens.com Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 15:05:23 -0600 Subject: [Baren 6803] Re: Getting Pasted..... Graham......thanks for the gooey stuff info.......what do you mean a plate ? That's the slickest looking piece of wood I ever seen......what do you mean adding paste to a plate ? What is that plate ? Is this for informational/display purposes only ? I sometimes use a stick (or a coffee stirrer thingie) to add the paste to the woodblock or sometimes I use a small cheapie brush to transfer a small "smear" of paste. I then add around the paste a few "swabs" of color (pigment (water based print ink) straight from the tube mixed with a little bit of water). Then I bring the two together with a flurry of circular strokes. I finish by smoothing everything out with "very soft" strokes that will parallel the grain of the block.....or in a certain pattern if looking for special effect....Watching Dave do it in his video helped quite a bit. My usual problem seems to be how much water to mix the ink with to create a working solution that's neither tooo thin or tooooooo "dry".....and how much to make that would last for the number of prints at hand.....and how to keep everything consistent. Have you ever used some of the special mixing medium used for acrylics to accentuate your colors ? Thanks.......Julio ------------------------------ From: barnaby.smith@immi.gov.au Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 09:49:08 +1000 Subject: [Baren 6806] Re: Wet Paper, New greeting card site ... Graham It was suggested to me that I should speak to you about where I can get inking brushes. I am in Australia and have a couple of brushes which I bought on a visit to Kyoto. However, I am really dying to get hold of some more, quite large. The ones I have are the authentic Japanese deer (or horse?) hair brushes. A friend of mine from Australia had a brush company in Sydney make up some brushes for him to specification, which worked out relatively cheaply buying in bulk. However, he is in Japan and I am unable to contact him. Do you have any information about suppliers, either in Japan or in the English speaking world? Much appreciated. Barnaby ------------------------------ From: Maria Arango Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 16:03:38 -0800 Subject: [Baren 6807] Re: supplies Barnaby, welcome to Baren! Suppliers are listed in the Encyclopedia at http://www.woodblock.com or alternatively http://www.printmakingstudio.com/links.html Aside from the Japanese suppliers, I think McClain's has the best selection of woodblock printmaking supplies. Request their catalog, it has a wealth of information. Almost anything you need to know about woodblock will be at the woodblock.com site. Good luck, Maria ------------------------------ From: David Bull Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 09:01:33 +0900 Subject: [Baren 6808] Where to get brushes ... Barnaby wrote: > Graham > Do you have any information about suppliers, either in Japan or in > the English speaking world? Much appreciated. This isn't Graham (0-0), but anyway here is a bit of info on brushes. Matsumura-san (a printmaker's supplier place here in Tokyo) recently opened their web site, with some English pages. http://www.woodlike.co.jp/index_eng.htm Unfortunately, their HTML programming ability is running somewhat behind their enthusiasm, and it's difficult to figure out what they are doing. Here is the Japanese page on their site that shows the brushes: http://www.woodlike.co.jp/brush.top.htm You can't read the gobbledygook, obviously, but you can see the basic layout and the pictures. Here is a translation of what you need... (All the prices are in yen). First section: (Edo hake) 8 mm 1490 15mm 1560 24mm 2500 30mm 3120 36mm 4320 42mm 5040 55mm 6840 Second section: (Maru bake) 45mmx40mm 2030 55mmx40mm 2190 55mmx42mm 2810 61mmx48mm 3120 77mmx52mm 3900 92mmx60mm 4680 107mmx60mm 5760 122mmx60mm 6720 137mmx60mm 7560 152mmx60mm 9240 182mmx60mm 11760 Third section: (mizu bake) (water brushes) 90mm 4000 150mm 6000 180mm 7000 Fourth section: brushes for learners, culture centre, etc. 15mm 500 24mm 900 60mm 1200 75mm 1500 Hakobi 200 Pigment 400 On his English pages he says: *** The method of an order About the order from foreign people, the system for receiving cannot yet be done. (He means ordering from the web pages is not yet possible) For the reason, please place an order using E-MAIL. (Their Email is woodlike@mtd.biglobe.ne.jp) We reply the estimate which totaled the mailing cost, the charge of packing, and the product price. And immediately after checking the payment by the postal check, We ship the article. *** Got it? Send him a simple language email asking for what you want. He will reply with an amount including merchandise cost and shipping. You then send an International Money Order (from the Post Office - DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT send them any kind of a bank cheque, or draft - they will just have to throw it away ...). Once they get your money order, they will ship the stuff. Go ahead and give it a try - they are good people, I can vouch for that. Dave ------------------------------ End of Baren Digest V9 #795 ***************************