Baren Digest               Sunday, 14 April 2002       Volume 19 : Number 1798


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From: slinders@attbi.com
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 10:07:22 -0500
Subject: [Baren 17862] Keiji Shinohara Summer Workshop 

Penland, in W. North Carolina is offering this summer workshop
in Japanese Woodcut Printmaking.  They still have openings in
this class <http://www.penland.org/index.html>

July 21-August 6 (two-and-a-half weeks)

Keiji Shinohara--Japanese Woodcut Printmaking
"Japanese woodblock printing is a 1000-year-old method that does
not involve presses or oil-based inks. Students will print by
hand, applying color with watercolor and rice paste. We will
cover color, design, composition, and carving techniques as well
as advanced gradation techniques (bokashi). All
levels."

Teacher at Wesleyan University (CT); studied Ukijo-e technique
at the Uesugi Studio (Kyoto) for ten years; Japan Foundation and
NEA fellowships; collections: San Francisco Museum, Cleveland
Museum, Harvard Art Museum (MA), Library of Congress.
<http://www.penland.org/classes/summer/instruct_work/instructors/shinohara.html>
<http://kshinohara.web.wesleyan.edu/>
- --Sharen

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From: Mike Lyon <mikelyon@mlyon.com>
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 10:51:31 -0500
Subject: [Baren 17863] Re: Cherry blocks in the US? 

Any lumber supplier of hardwood should be able to fix you up -- your 
'blocks' will start out as boards, usually the most economical are just 
under 3/4" thick no need to spend more for thicker boards, and you should 
be able to find boards up to about 14" wide fairly easily (you may have to 
poke around the stacks a bit).  Board lengths range from about 6 feet at 
the shortest to about 20 feet long.  The supplier will probably be willing 
to chop them into whatever lengths you like for a moderate extra charge.  A 
board foot is one square foot, 1" thick (measured PRIOR to surfacing -- a 
3/4" board was 1" before it was planed down to 3/4".  For 8/4 thicknesses 
(2" thick), then a board foot is 1/2 a square foot of surface -- board foot 
is an indication of volume.  Cherry typically runs $4 to $8 per board foot 
depending on grade, location, and other factors.  You should also look at 
the grain on the end of the board.  if the surface of the board was cut 
more or less on a tangent, then the grain on the surface will have grain 
lines far apart with a typically wavy pattern, but if it was cut more on a 
radius, then it will have much straighter grain with grain lines very close 
together.  The price is generally the same.

The board as it comes from the lumber yard is NOT ready for carving, as the 
planes used for surfacing leave a rough surface with many little parallel 
scoops (chatter) which WILL show up in the printing of large 
areas.  Traditionally the board is first planed with a very sharp hand 
plane, usually in three directions to assure flatness -- but most of us US 
hanga folk just sand the boards smooth -- I use a large electric random 
orbit sander (5" disk right angle two handed variety) and sand through 400 
grit -- that leaves the surface of the board glossy.  Others sand to finer 
grits, and some then shellac or varnish the surface before (and some 
after!) carving.  I don't generally put any finish on the wood.  If you 
don't do an excellent job surfacing the wood, you can't print 'wood grain' 
by hand, and you'll find that the areas which were not well surfaced print 
darker than the well surfaced areas, as the 'fuzzier areas' holds more 
ink.  It's pretty hard (to impossible) to surface a block after carving, so 
do yourself a favor and do an excellent job right from the start.

The yard where you buy your wood will usually chop it to whatever lengths 
you want for a moderate additional charge.  But it is harder to surface 
little pieces than to surface the whole board and then chop it to length.

Mike

At 10:20 AM 4/11/2002 -0700, you wrote:

>hello there,
>does anybody know of a vendor that carries cherry blocks good for
>printmaking in the California/Northwest (or elsewhere in the US, I guess).
>grazie,
>Marco Flavio


Mike Lyon
mailto:mikelyon@mlyon.com
http://www.mlyon.com 

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From: slinders@attbi.com
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 06:21:28 -0500
Subject: [Baren 17864] Takuji Hamanaka workshop, NY 

Japanese Water-based Woodblock Printing classes, summer session
at the Center for Book Arts, New York, New York,
<http://centerforbookarts.org/workshop/summer2002.htm>
August 12 - 16, 2002,  Takuji Hamanaka, instructor. 

Sharen

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End of Baren Digest V18 #1798
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