[Baren]: The mailing list / discussion forum for woodblock printmaking. Baren Digest Monday, 28 June 1999 Volume 07 : Number 610 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Graham Scholes Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 06:26:41 -0700 Subject: [Baren 4768] Re: Baren Qs >From Maria in LV >Nice work on the website, Graham! Thanks for the beautiful photos on covering >the baren. How thick is the backing disk? How thick is the coil? The whole >baren looks like it's about 3/8" without the bamboo covering? I recommend you go to http://www.woodblock.com/encyclopedia/topics/001/001_frame.html and this will answer you questions. There are numerous pages that give you a good insight into the baren and how it is made. > I don't own a real one and am attempting to make >one out of Southwest materials. Don't laugh, Dave; Lots of luck!!! Actually you could make a tool that would burnish and press but.....well talk to me when you have finished and have used one of those real things. Graham ------------------------------ From: Graham Scholes Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 09:22:56 -0700 Subject: [Baren 4771] Boot camp Well, everybody has left....the last were out of here at 6 am.... Marnie collapsed back to bed and I get on the update of the web site. Dump! Ya but I am still wound up for the weeks events. Of the hundreds of workshop I have done this will surely standout and being a good one. The people were wonderful.....contributing with innovative thoughts and ideas. Dave you have to know we have reinvented the woodblock techniques. This morning I realized that photo images of the work were not taken. It would have been fun to post them here.....Oh well next year. You can go to the update page http://www.members.home.net/gscholes/wksp.html There is more to come....stay tuned. Cheers, Graham ------------------------------ From: "Jean Eger" Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 10:28:59 -0700 Subject: [Baren 4773] Re: Baren Digest V7 #609 The worst is over, I think. Thanks for putting the sharpening information up Graham. Jean Eger ------------------------------ From: kim and paul Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 13:50:31 +0000 Subject: [Baren 4774] Re: Baren Digest V7 #609 Hi Bill, long time no see! This group is great. Hope to see your work in a future Exchange. Take care, Kim Kaschimer-Medina ------------------------------ From: William Fisher Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 16:54:20 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Baren 4775] Re: Baren Digest V7 #609 >Hi Bill, long time no see! This group is great. Hope to see your work >in a future Exchange. KIMMMMMM...good to hear from ya...yes, a GREAT group for sure. Take care, Bill ------------------------------ From: judy mensch Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 18:54:21 -0500 Subject: [Baren 4776] Re: Boot camp Graham: I've really enjoyed your workshop stories and photos. Thank you, Judy ------------------------------ From: Barbara Mason Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 20:20:58 -0700 Subject: [Baren 4778] Graham's Workshop To all of you who subscribe to both lists, I apologize for posting it to both places, but I don't want anyone to miss the kudo's from the workers at Graham's workshop. It is Sunday night and Wanda and I just got back to Portland. We had a wonderful time and learned so much from the "master" that I cannot recommend it enough. I waited for the workshop to try water based woodblock printing and am so glad I did. A Picture is worth a thousand words and seeing it done was "worth the price of admission" as Graham would say. We started out the week burning horsehair brushes to the proper length and shape. I had no idea what we were going to do with them, but like a lamb to the slaughter, I dutifully burned and shaped my brushes. To say we all smelled bad was an understatement. Because we were all in the same boat (smelling badly of burnt horsehair) we cheerfully went out to dinner in the same clothes and found no one sitting within 20 feet of us by the time dinner was over. Later in the week Greg and John did more brushes and we would not let them into the same room with us, so I can imagine how bad we must have smelled. The good news is that after sharpening on our shark skins, the brushes were ready and worked like a charm. I had not done any carving before so learning to hold the To at an angle so the knife made a shoulder on the cut image and not an undercut was a challenge for me. I also tried to hold the knife too close to the end, but found with instruction that balancing your arm against the plate and holding the knife higher up actually gave me more control. The To and I are still not on a first name basis, but I WILL get better. I had been so busy that I had not prepared a color image to print, so fell back on old images I had used in Monotypes. It was somewhat successful but I am grateful Graham did not get pictures of all the work. To post a first time effort would certainly be a humiliating experience for someone who has been a printmaker for over 10 years and turned out the sad efforts I made. However, I learned at each step of the way and of course learned from what everyone else was doing, and since I had no bad habits to unlearn, I am confident that now I can go forward and do great water based wood prints. Using the pigments supplied by Graham's "Ink Man " was a great experience and if anyone needs ink, I encourage you to buy them. We got 8 colors (2 oz of each) for $46 Canadian. It was a deal and 1/2 as you need so little of this base pigment and it is already in thick liquid form. The rice paste is mixed about 3 to one with water, so it drips off the end of a stick but not before you can get it to your plate. You use about a quarter teaspoon full for a 10x12 plate, mixing it into the watered down pigment on the plate. Graham said I had enough pigment mixed for 150 impressions, it was approximately 1/2 cup of liquid. You can see you do not need much and I had only put about two toothpicks full of pigment into the water. Another learning experience. If you want a darker tone add more pigment or print it twice. We all ended up printing the same colors two or three times to get the depth of color we needed. A totally foreign concept to me, to print the same color more than once on the same paper in the same place. It worked great. I also had a lesson in paper. What works for oil doesn't necessarily work for water because you are printing it so many times with water and the image can bleed a little after several printings. Graham said you can use BFK if you soak it, run it through the press, dry it and run it through the press again. Or buy Shin Torinoko paper, which has the proper sizing in it. I am not ready for the sized hosho paper that costs $30 a sheet, maybe in a while. I tried fabriano (it worked fairly well) stonehenge (it bled) Tableau (worked ok with two colors) and shin torinoko (worked great) rives lightweight (bled and was way too soft to handle) and Italia (fell apart on the block and bled). I will try Kitakata and report as well as some Masa I got at Dan Smith on the way home. The barens we got turned out to be 4 barens and 5 boxes of refills, they didn't notice and neither did we, so it was good April only needed two. We returned all 25 refills (we were slightly embarrassed, but they were more embarrassed when they realized they had charged us for 5 barens and shorted themselves a lot of money as the refills are $11 each) The Kento registration works so well it is amazing. It registers perfectly if you cut on the SAME SIDE OF THE LINE ON EACH PLATE. We photocopied our drawings with kento marks on the drawings, making multiple copies. We then transferred the drawings to wood by placing the photocopies face down on the wood and rubbing lacquer thinner over the back, not using enough to saturate the paper. This worked well, but we have to find another way, as I cannot use this evil stuff. Marco says turp works ok for him in San Francisco, Graham says it doesn't work in Victoria, so it must be the difference in toner. This system is foolproof to line things up. Graham used different colors of carbon paper face up on the cut blocks, placing a sheet of frosted mylar over the top of the carbon and rubbing the baren over it. He then proceeded to move the mylar to the next block and used a second color of carbon paper face up under the mylar and rubbed it with the baren. In this way you can make sure your blocks are in registration before you print. If you are off, you can fix it (well, Graham can fix it, the rest of us may just scratch our heads) This worked very well, Wanda did a strawberry patch image and got one color off a hair, but enough to leave a white line. They moved the bottom kento and lined it up using this method. Whew, I will write more later as I remember. The added bonus is I feel like I left family as we parted. Marco off to San Francisco and his show opening July 9, John off to Atlanta and his upcoming move, Greg back to Uganda, via a family vacation in Seattle and work in Romania (I think) and Wanda home to Molalla. Of course we hated to leave Graham and Marnie, we were fed so well and treated so royally (despite what SOME of us may say) that it was truly hard to leave. Time out of time, but alas, back to real life and 3 inches of unopened mail and about 50 email, most from the baren! more later, Barbara M ------------------------------ From: Wanda Robertson Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 21:00:10 -0700 Subject: [Baren 4779] Re: Boot camp Well, I'm finally home. What an absolute blast! I feel like I have a new family in these crazy artists. Barbara- my wonderful, generous traveling companion, Greg - the sharpest knife in the drawer (with a keen sense of humor to go along with that wit), John - with his on and off Southern drawl and his great piano playing, Marco - with his goood ideas and advice on books to read about Jack Daws (and other things too) And what can I tell you guys about Graham and Marnie? Marnie is one of the sweetest people (and best cooks) I've ever met, and Graham just *pumped* information into our tired little brains! We learned to sharpen tools, burn horse hair brushes to perfection (peeeeuuu!), condition those brushes on his newly made shark-skin boards. (It *really* works good!) cut kento marks (accurately) carve woodblocks, mix colors, print - and loved it all! For those of you who wondered what the heck we were doing with that camera. I showed everyone how to push the buttons and we all took pictures with it. The problem wasn't with the software or the camera, it was the fact that our Mac's OS weren't the same! I still am running OS 8.1 and Graham is up to 8.6! But, it all got worked out with the help of the Victoria Mac User's Group and Marco's suggestions. I also took regular 35mm pix, so will get those developed and sent soon. Those of you who missed it - you really missed the chance of a lifetime! I'm *so* glad I went, as I'm sure everyone else is too! Wanda Marnie and Graham, hope you can recover in a week or two! ------------------------------ From: Bea Gold Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 22:24:46 -0700 Subject: [Baren 4780] Re: Boot camp Graham, Boot Camp sounds wonderful and I'm reading all the stories and messages. Loved the pictures of the members and you and Marnie, Barbara,Wanda, Marco, John and Greg and also especially the covering of the baren. Graham you a master! BUT - I need help - my computer crashed and I needed to reinstall Windows - I lost all the Baren messages that I have been saving - Thank goodness my e-mail is back up but I need information about what I lost - Exchange 2? I can't get into the Admin section - it won't accept what I thought was my user name and password! Graham, has John gone home yet or is he still vacationing? I'm lost without my messages. Graham what did you say about the baren you were ordering for April and for me? Will you be able to get them? April where did you get the plastic barens? I lost Matts message and would like to order one. I'm looking forward to the Horizons workshop in August but April is it possible to be as entertaining as Grahams'? Jean - I'm on the mend (called Bea Nunee by my kids) and hope you are doing well too. ------------------------------ From: David Bull Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1999 19:38:52 +0900 Subject: [Baren 4781] Various ... Graham wrote: > Of the hundreds of > workshop I have done this will surely standout and being a good one. Congratulations Graham - it sounds like it was truly a wonderful event. I'm jealous that I don't have the capabilities to do such a thing here at my place. I'm sure the interaction and learning made it a fascinating week for everybody. > This morning I realized that photo images of the work were not taken. But aren't we going to see them in Exchange #2? *** Hello to the new members who've signed on recently. I'm really behind in getting the 'Who is Baren' page updated, so that all the members can see your work. I know that you are waiting to get in there ... I'll try and get to it as soon as I can. (I'm buried in printing again this week ... including my Exchange print - which I mailed off to John a couple of hours ago.) *** Bea wrote: > I lost all the Baren messages that I have been saving This is never a problem Bea. All [Baren] discussions are archived and available on the website at woodblock.com Every three months I make up a package of all discussions, and prepare a download package in two versions (Win/Mac), so that you can always keep all the messages on your computer, ready for access. I'll be doing the Apr-Jun package in a few days ... > I can't get into the Admin section You don't need any kind of password for that - the archives are open for anybody to read. *** Short 'admin' message: Some of you may not be aware that the 'After Five' group is actually a sub-set of the main [Baren] group. If you have a posting that you want _everybody_ to read, you only need send it to the main group, not to both. *** I received a most interesting package in the mail yesterday - a box of books for the Encyclopedia 'Library'. They are only on loan to me, but they arrived just in time - my two daughters arrived the other day, and they are going to be busy busy busy with the scanner for the next couple of months! The first volume should be ready in about a week ... and it will be well worth reading - lots of good fundamental info on 'how to do it' ... Dave ------------------------------ End of Baren Digest V7 #610 ***************************