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

Baren Digest                Sunday, 18 July 1999        Volume 08 : Number 632

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From: baren_member@woodblock.com (Gregory Robison)
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 09:08:15 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Baren 4979] Belatedly, the workshop 

Message posted by: Gregory Robison

Bucharest, Romania 17 July 1999

Marco Flavio: Congratulations on your show!  I've got a couple of 
great pix of you (and of everyone else) carving and printing in 
Sidney.  Will send to all when I'm back in Kampala in two weeks.

Graham's workshop was a wonderful experience.  I can't wait to get 
back to my studio, order up some blocks of Nkalate, and get to work.  
To the testimonials and commentary of my co-participants, I can only 
add the following:

- -- We began the workshop marveling at how much we were learning and 
at how wonderful it would be if others in Baren could enjoy the same 
intense experience.  After all, there is really no substitute for 
being guided through the whole process by a master.  But as the week 
wore on, and in spite of our otherwise impeccable left-wing 
credentials and the naturally generous temperaments of all involved, 
we began to grow rather proprietary about Graham.  Why should we 
share this treasure with the others, we began to think.  Let's the 
five of us book our Graham right now for a 'senior seminar' next year 
before the others get a chance! Fortunately, the ever level headed 
Marnie sent us home and saved her husband before we cooked up any 
more crazy ideas.  I assuage my conscience by confessing this plot, 
but in no way renounce our conspiracy!  You are forewarned, dear 
colleagues!

- -- As is normal in boot camp, the recruits worked together and ate 
together (and to look at our work space in Graham's studio/gallery at 
the end of the week, you would think we'd given new meaning to the 
old army term, 'mess mates').  We would emerge from the studio 
blinking into the soft evening light filtering through the red 
cedars, all of us smelling of burnt horse hair, fingers stained with 
ink, and speckled with curls of basswood shavings.  After a week, the 
single-mindedness and intensity was clearly taking its toll.  
Returning from dinner on the breathtakingly scenic shoreline of the 
island, we would careen down quiet residental streets to get a better 
view of the evening sky.  "How did He do that?" we wondered, 
referring to the work of the Celestial Printmaker.  "Do you think 
that sky was done with three impressions, the last one bokashi?"  
And, "Get a load of that rainbow!  I've never seen anything quite 
like that!"  "Of course not, you idiot, it's goma; very hard to 
reproduce in exactly the same way twice!"  We were, of course, 
looking at real landscapes, not prints, but had by this point begun 
to see the whole world "sub specie artis."  By the last day we were 
cheeky enough to detect a loose hair in the Almighty's brush in the 
rendering of a particular mountain...and it was manifestly time to 
reel us in.

Cheers and greetings to all.

Gregory Robison

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From: Gayle Wohlken <blueman@nacs.net>
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 09:39:18 -0400
Subject: [Baren 4980] Re: Baren Digest V8 #631 

Thanks, Dave and John for your help with carving techniques.
I'm going to leave the waves in this time since the hound is a
sillhouette on top of other color and there will be needling all around parts
of him that will be over the night sky (he is luminous because he
has been covered in phosphorous to make him look ghostly).  He
doesn't look too bad, but I'm being very careful about the other blocks.
There is a creamy orangish moon, the hound leaping (his head and
hind quarters against night sky, his mid body against the moon. 
The moors will be a lighter shade of blue.  The hound and all outlines
are black.  Maybe when I get it finished, I can ftp it to Dave and you
can all see it.  I'm working in oil and it's so  messy.  I have three tables
lined up together on the back porch, and all the tables are filled with
materials.  And my hands get washed often.  Rubber gloves get 
tossed away often.  And soon, I'll be thinking about hanga style.

I received my ordered baren  yesterday from Woodlike Matsumura
and it is beautiful!!!  It looks like something I don't want to use,
wrapped in it's little box.  I'm saving it for April's workshop next year. 

Also, Himi and Fumi I received the little box of brushes, and they too
are treasures.  I can't believe how tightly you got them tied!  Thanks 
so much.  Your check will go out this morning.

Gayle

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From: Gayle Wohlken <blueman@nacs.net>
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 09:41:32 -0400
Subject: [Baren 4981] Re: Baren Digest V8 #631 

John, I forgot to ask you about the cardboard between the
chisel and the block.  Do you stand it or just lay it upon the
line?  I sort of came up with that idea when I was working yes-
terday, and I tried standing the card, and that didn't work.  So
I'm assuming you mean to lay it down?  Please describe.

Gayle

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From: John Ryrie <j.ryrie@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au>
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 15:01:45 +1000
Subject: [Baren 4982] Re: Baren Digest V8 #631 

 Gayle wrote
>John, I forgot to ask you about the cardboard between the
>chisel and the block.  

I use a piece of card about 3mm thick and about 4cm X 6cm.  and lay it flat
against the block.  It protects the block against prosing and also works as a
lever at times.

John Ryrie

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End of Baren Digest V8 #632
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