Today's postings

  1. [Baren 42872] cleaning up ink (Barbara Mason)
  2. [Baren 42873] Re: not woodblock but ink ("Phare-Camp")
  3. [Baren 42874] Small show of prints/Santa Cruz; rabbits keep arriving (Andrew Stone)
  4. [Baren 42875] Baren Member blogs: Update Notification (Blog Manager)
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Message 1
From: Barbara Mason
Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2011 19:13:40 GMT
Subject: [Baren 42872] cleaning up ink
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This is not for the water-based folks....
You can clean up ink with oil, almost any kind of oil and then soap and water
and degrease with vinegar water or in desperation rubbing alcohol,
Rubbing alcohol will clean up almost anything but it evaporated quickly so work
fast...it will take sharpie pen out of clothing.
If you use acrylic paint or acrylic based inks you can get it out of a brush
that looks like a dried up piece of junk by soaking it for several days in
Murphys oil soap... I did not believe this till I tried it, I kept working it
every day and by the end of the third day it was like a new brush.
my best
Barbara
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Message 2
From: "Phare-Camp"
Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2011 19:47:00 GMT
Subject: [Baren 42873] Re: not woodblock but ink
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Andrea: is the canvas small enough to fit into an oven? I ask because I
once printed with Akua on sized paper, baking it at very low temp for about
15-20 minutes dried the ink on the paper. If the canvas is very large you
may try a blow dryer. I do wonder about why you would use water media on
canvas? Is the canvas primed, because the primer is probably acrylic gesso
which would resist the water media. Since none of the water media is
absorbed into the canvas when dry the pigments will be easily brushed off
and/or crack. So if blow drying works to dry the inks you'll then need to
fix the medium to the substrate. I suggest using clear acrylic spray paint;
you could pay a premium price for it at an art store but if you want to save
money buy the same thing at a hardware store. When you spray the surface
take it outdoors and stand upwind of the canvas, the fumes are quite
noxious...
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Message 3
From: Andrew Stone
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 04:26:31 GMT
Subject: [Baren 42874] Small show of prints/Santa Cruz; rabbits keep arriving
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I have a small show of prints (19) that just went up at a local coffeehouse on the west side of Santa Cruz and there's one general photo of the show up on my blog.
Anybody near Coffeetopia on Mission street should visit and have a look.
Show is up until April 15th and the coffee is good.

Also happy to report I opened up a stack of arrived rabbit cards.
Especially interesting is one from Ben Szoller? from Toronto;
cool hare--bones and all with a highway overpass and circling hawk/bird. Moku Hanga and looks like
six or seven blocks and colors--very cool if a bit disturbing way to look forward to 2011.
Thanks to all who have got them out already.

Mine is still in the works. Maybe transfer to the block tomorrow?
I'll be trying out a cherry plywood from McClains and I'll chime in once I've carved it how it handles.

Happy printing.

Andrew Stone
rospobio.blogspot.com

Digest Appendix

Postings made on [Baren] members' blogs
over the past 24 hours ...

Subject: Mystique Series #11 : printing second batch
Posted by: Dave Bull

Over two weeks since the previous update ...

One week of that was 'erased' from working time - I took a quick 7-day trip over to Vancouver for a family visit. I hadn't been there since last June's Anniversary trip, and as our next 'official' reunion isn't scheduled until (probably) sometime this fall, I didn't want to wait that long before seeing everybody ...

It was a pleasant week just 'hanging out' with everybody, but perhaps the most vivid memory is of the top of the heads of my two grandsons. That's all I saw of them, really - they didn't look up much ... would you, with a magical multi-part transformer from Japan in your hands?

Once back in Tokyo, I got right to it; I'm so far behind now that there was no time to waste ... the printing paper was moistened that same evening, ready for work in the morning. And here we are, exactly a week later, with the second batch of Urashima Taro all done, and ready for signing:

I'll take them down to Tokyo tomorrow evening, where I have an appointment to meet designer Seki-san for dinner; after we have our meal, we'll clean the table top, spread these out, and get signing!

Once that job is out of the way, we'll 'change hats' and finalize the designs for the new Senshafuda project - but more on that over on the Mokuhankan Conversations in a few minutes ...


This item is taken from the blog Woodblock RoundTable.
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Subject: Senshafuda Project - design evolution
Posted by: Dave Bull

Although not moving along quite as quickly as I would have liked, progress on the senshafuda project is happening. Part of the reason for the slowness is that none of the people involved but me really have a clear idea of what it is that we are trying to build.

Designer Kaori Seki, although plenty experienced at doing illustration work for other formats, doesn't yet have a good concept of what makes a good design for a print. (This is not a criticism of course, just a statement of the fact ...) And it has been quite difficult for me to explain in words just what it is that I want her to produce. If I could draw it, I wouldn't need her!

Here, for example, is how we have progressed on one of the three designs ... I had given her the mandate to include something 'contemporary' in the set, and she came up with the idea of doing something on the new Sky Tree that is currently being built here in Tokyo. Just the other day, construction progressed to the point where the structure is now the tallest in the world, and it is very much in our news. Here's the first sketch she sent in:

Contemporary this is ... not only the SkyTree, but the crowd of people shooting it on their cellphones! Problem though, there is just too much tiny detail; all the impact is lost, not to mention difficulty in carving/printing. So she came back with the next version - the crowd gone:

Better, but still too 'detailed'. I realized we don't have to show the SkyTree twice, do we ... And I'm also not so partial to the typical Japanese cellphones, with all their tiny buttons ... So the suggestion on which way to take it was a no-brainer, and she quickly replied with:


[Long item has been trimmed at this point. The full blog entry can be viewed here]

This item is taken from the blog Mokuhankan Conversations.
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