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

Baren Digest              Sunday, 15 November 1998      Volume 05 : Number 344

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From: Gary Luedtke <GLuedtke@compuserve.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 08:46:00 -0500
Subject: [Baren 2091] The Voice 

Dave wrote:
>I think you're looking at the wrong guy to do this.  If I was going to
>learn Hawaiian for example, would I trust what I heard from some guy
>living in say, Kansas City?  

Ah, but Dave, if the guy from Kansas City was living in Hawaii, and had to
speak Hawaiian in order to get along, you could very well trust him to
teach you at least the basics.   Also, we know you are fluent in the
language, we've seen the video!   But no, we won't add that to your other
duties, don't worry.   You're doing plenty already.

Gary

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From: David Bull <davebull@woodblock.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 23:03:58 +0900
Subject: [Baren 2092] Re: The Voice 

Gary wrote:
> Maybe you can work your way through the Baren
> alphabet of tools and materials with a pronunciation lesson.,

> But no, we won't add that to your other
> duties, don't worry.   You're doing plenty already.

But once this idea came up, I couldn't resist having a go with a couple
of samples to see what it would look (sound) like ...  

http://www.woodblock.com/encyclopedia/entries/010_01/010_01.html

But I think before I go ahead and do the rest (getting a native Japanese
speaker to make the recordings), I'll try and figure out a way to get
the audio file sizes smaller.  Those 100K files take just too long to
download.  Anybody on the group have any experience with audio stuff on
the web?  (any info to me off-list please ...  Thanx)

Dave

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From: "Ray Esposito" <brassring@brassring.org>
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 10:00:52 -0500
Subject: [Baren 2093] Re: The Voice

Dave wrote:
>A voice from above, Ray?   How do you know it wasn't from below!

Because I talk to her all of the time and I know THAT voice

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From: Graham Scholes <gscholes@islandnet.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 08:19:42 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Baren 2094] Re: Baren Digest V5 #342 

Jean wrote....
>The ink was made from Daniel Smith lamp black dry pigment mixed with
>alcohol and water, into a paste consistency. It was mixed on the block with
>rice flour paste made from four teaspoons rice flour to one cup water. The
>damp paper was printed three times. I had problems
>with the ink blobbing at the edges, filling the cuts, and brush marks.

Jean it sounds like you have not mixed the paste properly.

Did you mix the flour in water to a thin paste.
Did you boil the water.
Did you pore the boiling water in the thin paste mix
Did the paste go translucent and very thick.
Does the paste just barely drip of the end of a spoon handle.

If you used that much flour and water you would have enough
paste to print .... oh about 700 to 1000 prints.

You say your pigment is a paste consistency.!  Should be liquid yet rich in
colour
Is'm sure you are putting on to much paste and pigment.
It should be a very thin even coat. You can allow the inked block to sit
for a short while 1 - 2 minutes depending on the humidity of your work
space.
Be careful it does not dry.....the way to judge this is to print when the
sheen of the pigment is satin appearance.....not glossy looking.
This waiting period allows the pigment to spread to help reduce the brush
marks the may be left from inking.  You may be using a inking brush that is
to coarse.

Graham

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From: jimandkatemundie@juno.com (James G Mundie)
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 12:23:32 -0500
Subject: [Baren 2095] camellia oil 

Dave wrote about the baren-wata:

>... which over time becomes quite saturated with the
>camellia oil used to lubricate the baren surface.

Something I have been wondering about the use of camellia oil.  This oil
is used to lubricate the baren, so does it not follow that some of this
oil would transfer to the washi, or does the moisture in the washi
(perhaps I should say 'softness') repel the oil?  Does this oil pose any
threat to the washi?  I was thinking of the way linseed oil will discolor
and corrode ungessoed paper or canvas and wondering whether the same
thing might apply here.

Sla/n agaibh,
James Mundie, Philadelphia USA

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From: Gayle Wohlken <blueman@pantek.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 14:59:33 -0500
Subject: [Baren 2096] Re: Baren Digest V5 #343 

Jean showed us her latest woodblock print at:
http://users.lanminds.com/~jeaneger/bay.html

Jean, looking at it small was easier than looking at it large.  
But, at least large we got to see the individual areas up close.
The print has a nice mysterious quality.  It reminds me of the black
and white sketches by British painter John Constable.  

* * * *
Roger, thanks for the little keyboard drawing of the printing
frame. So the screws are  stuck into the bottom board.  Do they stick
up out of the bottom board?  like this?

 ______________T_______          
I______________________I     

{pretend that the "T" is a screw sticking up.  I haven't drawn the L-Frame; 
just the board the L-Frame and block sit on)

Also, we are not looking down on it but as if we were holding in up to
eye  level and looking at it horizontally.

Is that how you do the screws?

Gayle Wohlken

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From: Jean Eger <jeaneger@LanMinds.Com>
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 13:44:58 -0800
Subject: [Baren 2097] Re: Baren Digest V5 #343 

Dave Bull wrote:
>There is a Glossary of Japanese
>Printmaking Terms in the Encyclopedia, and putting a short .wav file
>connected to each entry, so that people could actually _hear_ the words,
>would perhaps be very useful.

This is a great idea, Dave.  Please speak a little slower.

	Lynita, thanks for telling about how you happened to go to Japan.  Yes,
I'm a member of this group.  Dave and Ray and Graham invited me to join
shortly after they started it and I immediately got into a fight with Ray.
Then I had a nervous breakdown because my best friend died of cancer and I
was going through graduate school.  However, I pulled myself back together
and I am still doing woodcuts and still reading Baren and still amazed at
how accomplished a group of people this is.  
	I got started doing Japanese style woodblocks because a classmate asked me
to demonstrate multicultural printmaking at a San Francisco High school.
So I thought I'd better learn about it fast.    
	They didn't teach traditional Japanese printmaking at SF State: just
oil-based.  Katherine McKay gives mokuhanga lessons in this area,
privately, with groups.  So I took a summer course with her.  Thanks for
the definitions of hang and mokuhanga, Lynita!  
	Just getting introduced to kento marks is a biggie.  I think that
qualifies as multicultural right there.  Here's one for your encyclopedia,
Dave:

The melting pot registration method  
	You can use kento marks to transfer your design onto unlimited numbers of
blocks.  
	Once you cut your kento marks and your key block, print your first print
in oil based ink.  Then take the print and put it on to your second block,
into the kento marks, which you have already made.  Rub the back with a
wooden spoon to offset the design onto the uncut wood.  There, you have
transferred your design and now you can cut your second block of wood.  It
will register perfectly with the first block. 
	This is a hybrid printing method,--call it the American melting pot method! 

Jean EGer

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From: Gary Luedtke <GLuedtke@compuserve.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 16:55:16 -0500
Subject: [Baren 2098] Re: The Voice 

To all,

If anyone has experience putting sound on a web-site, please copy me on
your response to Dave. 

Gary

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From: David Bull <davebull@woodblock.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 10:24:22 +0900
Subject: [Baren 2099] Sounds, etc. 

Jean wrote about her:
> melting pot registration method  

and suggested:
> Here's one for your encyclopedia, Dave

Actually Jean, it's already in there!  Mike Spollen describes it in the
page at:

http://www.woodblock.com/encyclopedia/entries/000_03/000_03.html

The method is well-known and frequently used here in Japan.  I first saw
it at the Yoshido studio, where they had a special frame with a mylar
sheet.  The key block was placed into the frame, inked, and the mylar
sheet was then pulled down on top of it.

This was then rubbed with the baren, and when the design was thus 
transferred to the mylar, the key block was removed and a new blank
block took its place.

The sheet then came back down, and rubbing the back of it transferred
the design and kento to this new block.


All these recent comments about registration, and about getting designs
onto the block, _do_ deserve inclusion in the Encyclopedia.  They will
just have to wait a bit however, as things are a bit frantic around here
these days.  So please keep them coming - sometime later I'll organize
and clip them into a coherent section for good access ...

***

Jim wrote, about the camellia oil on the baren:
>  Does this oil pose any threat to the washi? 

It doesn't seem to be a problem.  Part of this must obviously come from
the natural repellence between the wet paper and the oil on the skin, I
guess.  

It works both ways - the oil on the baren skin helps repel the water
that is in the paper, and the skin thus stays relatively firm and dry.

I too, very much doubted this at the beginning, but I have never had any
kind of problem with staining or 'bleeding', and when one considers that
Japanese prints have been made this way for hundreds of years, one would
think that any problems with the technique would have become apparent by
now!

***

Thanks to various members for the tips and suggestions on the sound
files.  There do indeed seem to be some good solutions available, and
I'll definitely be exploring this for the Encyclopedia.

***

#99 was finished last night, and is now lying pressed under the
flattening boards.  Today the documentary people are coming back, to
shoot the beginning of the end ... the hanshita preparation for #100.

Hard to believe ... #100 at last ...

Dave

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From: "Ray Esposito" <brassring@brassring.org>
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 21:49:42 -0500
Subject: [Baren 2100] Re: Baren Digest V5 #343 

Jean wrote:
> Lynita, thanks for telling about how you happened to go to Japan.  Yes,
>I'm a member of this group.  Dave and Ray and Graham invited me to join
>shortly after they started it and I immediately got into a fight with Ray.

I don't even have boxing gloves.  I am a lover, not a fighter.  :-)>>>

Ray

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From: Bill Ritchie <ritchie@emeralda.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 18:06:50 -0800
Subject: [Baren 2101] Re: One-Point lesson ... 

My first mentor on the art and craft of sosaku hanga was Stephen Hazel,
when he moved to Seattle in 1968. He studied with Hideo Hagiwara in Japan,
and Stephen introduced the process in Michigan and, as I said, in Seattle.

Regarding Camellia oil, I recall Stephen telling us that one of the
properties of this oil is that it "dries" out over time and does not leave
a greasy residue the way some oils do. I believed everything Stephen said,
though I never understood much.

I never figured out why he called the first Hanga Workshop ever taught in
Seattle the "Bill Ritchie Memorial Workshop". Maybe it was because sosaku
hanga has the power to extinguish other art and printmaking techniques due
to its virtuous qualities.

Who can say? I kept on making other kinds of prints.

Inventor Bill H. Ritchie, Jr.

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From: Julio.Rodriguez@walgreens.com
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 22:25:21 -0600
Subject: [Baren 2102] re: Sounds 

Thanks Dave for the sound waves. It really adds a new dimension to our
discussion group ! What's next ? video clips of our fellow members in
action....perhaps demonstrating each a special process ????? The
possibilities are endless !

Because I speak fluent spanish...I tried reading/sounding out the words on
your sound waves "in grammatical spanish" prior to listening to your voice.
With the exception of AISUKI and SUJI (in BAREN-SUJI) I got them all pretty
darn close. I would say almost identical to your sounding. It seems that
the "u" in AISUKI is silent and you say "aais-ky" were I pronounced
"ai-su-ki". The "yee" sound in "SUJI" looked more like "suhi" to me. Other
than that I did ok! Thanks for the lesson.

Ps. I noticed from your video and from the wave files that you have a very
calm easy going way of speaking..almost a whisper at times......just
wondering if this was always the case or if it is a result of life in Japan
and it's culture.....

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From: Steiner <steiner@mbox.kyoto-inet.or.jp>
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 19:45:37 +0900
Subject: [Baren 2103] but don't call me Fred 

from Richard Steiner/Kyoto

Gayle wonders (Baren 2073) if she can call me Richard or
has to use the Steiner which I sign with.  You can call me anything you
want, as long as it isn't Fred.  I have nothing really against the name
Fred, but in my experience wandering thru the fields looking for
something to sketch, I have found that many bugs go by that name,
especially small beetle-types, male and female.  It doesn't seem to
matter to them that so many of them have the same name, but I would be
a little upset.  I like bugs quite a lot, and they have figured largely
in my prints, both real bugs and imaginary ones. Call me Richard,
then.

And as far as the inlay goes, don't give up so soon, (which is good
advice for everything we attempt for the first time).  And, wood putty
really does work. Try again, Gayle.  You get the hang of it soon enuf.

Steiner/Kyoto (Fred just flew out the window)

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From: April Vollmer <jy6@columbia.edu>
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 20:58:32 +0900
Subject: [Baren 2104] Re: Baren Digest V5 #343 

Jean, you didn't say what kind of baren you were using! Ink sounds fine,
rice paste fine...your cuts may be a little shallow. I find if I have
cut very fine lines, they will fill in more if I use more paste (I use
methyl cellulose, same difference). You could try cutting deeper, or using less
paste.

A good baren will help fill in the "dry" spots on the raised portions
without pushing the paper into the low areas.

Nice print!

April Vollmer

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From: Shimizu <shimizu@mail1.nai.net>
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 07:28:40 -0500
Subject: [Baren 2105] Re: One-Point lesson ... 

Great lesson on the baren, Dave. Thanks.  Your Japanese is so Japanese!
How long have you lived in Japan?

As for camellia oil, I was told that camellia oil doesn't oxidize; that
it is an extremely stable oil.  I guess this would explain why color
change doesn't occur.

While we're on the camellia oil subject, I have just one more Tokuriki
story I can't resist sharing:  Camellia oil is a favorite hair product
in Japan, used to promote healthy, shiny hair. It is said that woodblock
printers often rubbed the baren against their hair to get the oil onto
the baren.  My favorite memory of Tokuriki Sensei is seeing him print,
then rub the baren against his head while laughing away merrily.  The
problem was, poor sensei had already lost his hair!

Lynita, Connecticut

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End of Baren Digest V5 #344
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