tea, tea and more tea

I've been making lots of small mixed media pieces lately. This one is chiyogami paper with ink and a little digital colouring. I'm a late bloomer to the wonders of photoshop and so haven't been able to stop fiddling with some of my drawings and prints since I got cs3 earlier this week. I'm driving my graphic designer friend J a bit crazy with all my basic questions (sorry J!). I'm playing around with colours on my designs this way so I can get a better sense of how a woodblock print might look before I start the labour-intensive process of carving the block.

carving

It's pouring with rain this Sunday morning, and for those of you who don't live in Melbourne or don't know much about the Australian drought, this is a very good thing!

I have a lot of carving to do. This is the most tedious part of woodblock printmaking in my opinion but the nice part is you can end up with some gorgeously carved blocks which are like pieces of art in themselves. And not to mention it's the only way to get the print on the paper! I love using my carving tools. I bought them one by one in Japan as I had the money (good quality tools can be quite pricey) and now have a good collection. There's even a very old tool previously owned by the lovely Kazuko Hirota, a wonderful Japanese woodblock printer. The wooden handle is smooth with wear and very soft to touch and hold. It's a tiny tool with a small scoop carver and I swear it's one of the most used tools in my box.

They say in Japan that the rainy season or at least a rainy day is the best day for printing as it helps the paper to stay moist. If there's going to be any printing today I'd better stop my carving procrastination.

pottery play

My small woodblock print, green tea, is really popular in my etsy shop so I have decided I need to re-explore my fascination for Japanese ceramics (especially those from the Shigaraki area near Kyoto) and design another tea and ceramics inspired print. These close ups are from this funky calendar I have from Shigaraki covered in Japanese tea cups. I LOVE this calendar poster so much I can't bear to take it down off my kitchen wall even though it is for 2005. Some might say this shows I haven't accepted that I've left Japan yet, but I would say it just shows how much I want to keep little bits of Japan alive in me wherever I am. Anyway that's my story on the tea cup poster. I'm using it to inspire a bigger, tea themed woodblock print. This one will involve a teapot too. I haven't decided on the colours yet but am working up to it.


Best news is (for anyone who cares, I know at least Kristin will....) we have bought a new house and so are no longer spending every waking moment house-hunting. Yay! And the new house even has a studio for my printmaking! I'm soooooooo excited.

the evolution of a little box

I've been developing a little chiyogami paper box for the past week or so. It started off looking like this in its first incarnation:

Bright red covered chiyogami paper on the bottom and then textured, white Japanese paper on the top. Then my little monk woodblock print on top of that. I lightly lacquered the whole thing to protect the paper from wear and tear. But I didn't like the paleness of the lid so I started playing with it again and put some more chiyogami paper on it to lift the monk print out a bit.
I love the colours in the chiyogami I used for the new lid. And now it looks like this:

and this:I'm much happier with it now. I've also bought some plain coloured paper to experiment with more lids to work in combination with some other amazing chiyogami patterned paper I have from Japan. I bought a huge stash just before I left and then rolled it up and tucked it inside one of my large rolls of printmaking paper. And just the other day I re-discovered it again accidentally while rummaging through my paper collection. I had completely forgotten about it!

little owls and things

Owl Gocco Print by Matte Stephens

I've recently discovered the wonderful work of Matte Stephens through his etsy shop, matteart. This lovely Owl gocco print is just one of the soft, colourful pieces he has for sale. Matte's profile says he's been making a living as a painter for 12 years. Yay Matte! How fantastic that an artist can find a way to work in their field full-time.

It looks as though Matte's based in the USA. Take a look at his shop and see what you think.

purples and blues

Spring is definitely here now the wisteria is in flower. This gorgeous one is in our back garden and because we're moving soon (when?) I was motivated to take some photos of it this week. Anyone who has ever had wisteria in their garden knows it's an amazingly fast grower with strong winding branches that get so thick that they can start to pull part of your house down - true! I've been vicious about chopping this one back every winter. And it still gets up the strength to flower like this every September.

On a printmaking note, I've just changed my mind about European printing papers. I'm pretty much a paper snob and until now have only really liked to print on good quality Japanese paper. But because I don't live there anymore and my Japanese paper supplies are starting to dwindle, I've decided to investigate and try out some of the European papers available in Melbourne art shops. Tonight I printed my little blue dragonfly print on thick, white paper from Italy and I think I like the way it worked out. It had this lovely way of merging with the block while I was printing. So I think I'm going to lose some of my paper snobbery and try some Stonehenge paper I bought yesterday and see how that turns out too.

pods and things

I've been printing all afternoon (sore shoulder to prove it) off this block for a print exchange with print exchange five so that I can make the deadline. I loved the sepia tone of the wet block as I was printing so I took a few photos. Sometimes I prefer the colour on the block more than the colour that prints on the paper. Here a few small pods I printed off the block when I was finished:

It's hard going with printing at the moment. Half our stuff is packed away and in the shed ready for our move as we sold our house last weekend. It takes me so much longer to prep paper and print as I try to remember where everything is and improvise by printing without my big red laminex printing table. All will be better once we find another house and I can set up my studio space again.