Kristina Hagman - woodblock printmaker

California woodblock printmaker Kristina Hagman demonstrates wood block printmaking using a Vandercook Proofing press at the Art Center College, Pasadena California. Showing wood blocks from the print series "36 Views of Mount Rainier" and "West coast Canada to Mexico".



For more info and to see a gallery of prints visit Kristina's website

Awash in Color: French and Japanese Prints

A current exhibit at the Smart Museum of Art (The University of Chicago); "Awash in Color" explores the roles, functions, and technology of color in French and Japanese prints. It features more than one hundred and thirty prints and illustrated books dating from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, drawn from the Smart Museum’s substantial holdings as well as major public and private collections across the country. The exhibit runs from October 4, 2012 to January 20, 2013.

Top: Henri Rivière, Vegetable Garden at Ville-Hue (Saint-Briac), 1890, From the Breton Landscapes, Color woodblock print printed from eight blocks on eighteenth-century Japanese laid paper. For more info visit Smart Museum of Art website.

CPC - Chicago Printmakers Collaborative

Found this recent video about the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative group. Founder and owner Deborah Lader shares her experience running CPC for the last twenty years.

There is a reception and open house October 6th for an exhibition "Danse Macabre: Death and the Printer" showcasing work by Chicago-area artists dealing with the universality of death and how they perceive it. For more info visit the CPC website at: www.chicagoprintmakers.com



Chicago Printmakers Collaborative
4642 N. Western Ave.
Chicago IL 60625
p. 773.293.2070

There is also a CPC related video on Vimeo featuring Matthew Knight, Natalia Rafalo and Megan Skidmore discussing their budding collections as members of the Young Printshop Patrons group (YPP).

Click here for video

Korean Woodblock Printing

At the Gyeonggi Provincial Museum in Yongin-si Korea students and tourists can participate in traditional Korean Woodblock printing. It's a lot of fun, and makes for a great souvenir. It's all free, except for the paper which costs about 40 cents a sheet.

Japanese Woodblock class

Today we bring you two video clips from a Japanese woodblock printmaking class or demonstration. Not sure who the teacher is only that the videos were uploaded on June 2010. Normally we see Japanese printmakers teaching 'foreigners' and I thought it interesting to see a different aspect of it.

I hope your Japanese is up to speed !

If anyone knows who is teaching the class or has any other related info please post a comment or send me an email in the Baren forum.

Part 1
There are some interesting tips on bokashi (gradation printing): At 3:10-3:25 in the video; notice how he tilts the brush toward the red or toward the orange side of the block as to keep the colors separate and not muddy up the bokashi. Also at 5:00-7:00 he demonstrates ue of water and nori paste to achieve yet another bokashi technique.
There is a second video clip of the same class at Part 2

Back in 2001 shortly after the September 11th attack members of Baren got together and dedicated a special exchange of prints to the victims. The Firemen's Print exchange was exhibited in a number of locations across the United States and sales from the prints were donated to the NYC Firemen's fund. A complete folio of the prints reside in the permanent art collection of the New York Public Library.

You can see all the prints by clicking here

Artist: Lezle Williams

Artist: Carol Lyons

Artist: Georga Garside

Artist: Gayle Wohlken

You can see all the prints by clicking here

Printmaker - Nana Shiomi

Continuing with our 'British printmakers' theme; here is a demonstration video(s) featuring printmaker Nana Shiomi. She combines woodblock relief and intaglio to make some outstanding prints. Not to be missed and of particular interest to me is her registration technique which uses the traditional kento but with a twist.

Make sure to visit her website for a wealth of information about her works, technique and printmaking background.





Excerpt from YouTube:
"Nana Shiomi is an extraordinary artist-printmaker who studied at the Royal College of Art from 1989-1991 and subsequently has gone on to a strong career exhibiting her own work and teaching.

She demonstrates her unique combination relief/intaglio water-based woodcut printmaking, rooted in the traditional methods of Japanese ukiyoe woodblock printmaking. These two videos are excerpts from her demonstration where we were fortunate enough to spend an afternoon watching her work at Double Elephant Print Workshop in Exeter, Devon. This was during the period that she had a show at The Brook Gallery in Budleigh Salterton, Devon."

www.nanashiomi.com

Thomas Bewick and woodblock engraving

Found this neat video from the Natural History Museum in London England featuring Beckwith and his work.

"Wood-block printing using engraved boxwood revolutionised the illustration of natural history in the early 19th century. The work of Thomas Bewick showed how detailed and accurate images could be printed more cheaply than ever before."

Find out more about the Images of Nature gallery at the Museum:http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/galleries/blue-zone/images-nature-gallery/index

David Bull - Ukiyoe-Heroes Project Update

If you are wondering what Dave's latest project is all about make sure to check out his latest YouTube video and link below that explains what the exciting Ukiyoe-Heroes project is all about. Here is Dave talking about the first batch of prints ("Rickshaw Cart")ready to ship.



You can read all about Ukiyoe-Heroes, the exciting Kickstarter campaign and David's collaboration with illustrator Jed Henry here.

Guess the mystery artist ?

Can you guess the mystery artist ?

Well, actually this is a trick question, the prints are by different artists and from different time periods. The first and fourth prints are by Matt Brown from Lyme, New Hampshire. The other prints are by well known Canadian watercolour painter & printmaker Walter J. Phillips (1884-1963). Phillips made most of his woodblock prints between 1917 and 1952. Matt Brown was born in 1958 and made his first Japanese style woodblock prints around 1993.

I was taken back by the similarity in subject matter between the two artists. Like Phillips, Matt Brown also derives his inspiration from the surrounding landscape, family and animal life. Looking at the work of both men leaves no doubt as to their love and admiration for Nature.

You can check out Matt's website and gallery at: http://www.ooloopress.com/index.html

For a comprehensive site on Walter J. Phillips you can visit: http://www.sharecom.ca/phillips/

New Baren-Suji

Welcome to the NEW! Baren-Suji: The Official Baren Blog and Newsletter
 

Baren-suji are the marks left by the baren when printing. Similarly, this newsletter assumes the role of recording the marks left by the woodblock printmakers that constitute [Baren]. Comments and contributions are welcomed.  Baren and The Encyclopedia of Woodblock Printmaking were created by David Bull in 1997 to promote the art of and share information about woodblock printmaking. Baren activities include an international discussion forum, a network of woodblock printmakers, workshops and get-togethers, and the very successful Exchange and Exhibition Programs.

Dragons awake after 12 years sleep !

        Dragons awaken ! 

  After 12 years of hibernation an old set of New Year Dragon prints awaken to wreak havoc upon a northern suburb of Chicago. The prints were part of the original Baren Chinese New Year Dragon exchange of 2000 (Y2K). They were also part of a Baren exhibit at the Skokie Public Library and after that ran it's course the dragons were silenced until last month when they came out of hibernation to attend a New Year party at Walgreens headquarters. The dragon prints were so well received that they may have found a permanent resting place !

  Among the artists represented: Ruth Leaf, Gary Luedtke, April Vollmer, Maria Arango-Diener, Bea Gold, John Ryrie, Sarah Hauser, Jean Eger Womack, Lynita Shimizu, Julio Rodriguez, Andrea Rich, Barbara Mason, Wanda Robertson, Josephine Severn, Jan Telfer, Phillip Smith, Sylvia Taylor, Jack Reisland, Gayle Cline Wohlken, Horacio Soarez-Neto, Arafat AL-Naim, David Mohallatee, Le Green, Jean Norman Chase, Daryl DePry and others.