Japanese Woodblock Printmaking - An Ukiyo-e Falcon

hello this is woodblock printmaker dave bull here at my carving bench in our building in asakusa tokyo it's time all ready to introduce our next video it's printmaking today recently we've had just too many videos talking about prince it's long past time to get hands off this is going to be one of those step-by-step videos you're going to watch as a blank sheet of paper gets transformed into a beautiful woodblock print here at my carving bench of course not and it's not me who is going to make the print for you today it's natsuki suga who has appeared in a number of our previous videos for the past week or so she's been working at her bench on the third floor upstairs on a batch of prints for this year's subscription series that's the scenes of nature the ones based on designs by isora kojiusai last time we worked with her to make one of these videos we had a routine worked out each time she moved forward to the next color in the process she called downstairs to the office on the second floor and cameron sat there put aside his work went upstairs and filmed it once all the steps were complete he then of course edited the whole thing together we're unable to do it that way this time because cameron is teleworking from home around a half an hour from here by train not so easy to just run up the stairs a few times a day so the camerawork this time around was done by aoyamasa who is perhaps not so familiar to many of our fans because he stays pretty much in the background he worked with me on construction of the shop here he's making our wood blocks searching for cherrywood here and there around the country and then actually doing the bonding to make the actual blocks and he built suvasan's workspace the one you will see in the video so he organized the lights and tripods and stuff and then under sugar sands guidance took tons of footage of the process as she went through the set each day he uploaded that footage to a place where cameron over at home could access it and he over there got busy with the editing also communicating with super saiyan to decide what she wanted to be included and what she felt needed to be specifically explained to the viewers once they got close to the end stage cameron did jump on the train and come over here because he wanted to talk directly to her about her work on his print and you'll see that conversation as part of this video too anyway enough talk let's sit back and watch as the moko hong kong staff team brings you the birth of a print you know i've been playing this game now for well over 40 years and i never never get tired of watching this magic indeed so in today's video we are showing a few steps you've never seen before such as paper cutting in the opening and now an extended look at the paper moistening process where suga-san uses a simple basin of water and her wide mizubake or water brush to moisten groups of paper we are often asked why the paper should be moist when printing there are two main reasons for this one if we tried printing on dry paper the sheets would expand unevenly as they absorbed the water from the blocks and registration of multiple colors would then become impossible and two the pigments would not sink in properly if the paper were too dry and hard but what level of dampness are we aiming for the printing paper should end up feeling about like a sheet that has just come out of the spin dry cycle ready for hanging on the clothesline damp and soft the pieces of paper have been arranged alternating between wet and dry sheets suga-san puts them away after moistening them to let the moisture spread evenly throughout the entire stack overnight you will notice that she and all our printers also keep the prints inside of plastic bags with moist newspaper this helps keep them evenly moist throughout the printing process we also freeze our prints at night for multi-day printing jobs to prevent mold from growing in what would otherwise be a dangerously warm moist environment [Music] as is often but not always the case today we start with the key block this prince key block contains a large amount of delicately detailed areas especially in the feathers while also featuring some lines surrounded by white space the variety here affects both the brushing and the pressing of the bottom it is important to spread the pigment evenly across the image with the brush if too little is applied in an area it will show up as a lighter gray and if too much pigment is applied or if it is not properly brushed it may pool between some of the fine lines causing pigment to be printed where it is not wanted the key block provides the main reference on the prints for the registration or alignment of all the following impressions if the registration of this first impression is done incorrectly no later colors will line up for the second impression we have a light yellow shade on the falcon while this may appear to be a simple shape with only one area it is important to note that large flat areas require a bit more power than the thin lines of the keyblock do in order to get a smooth color across the image now wait a second where did she go off the camera there let's watch that again from another angle oh now i see when printing large flat areas that require a bit more time and pressure like this some of the moisture from the paper can get absorbed by the bamboo wrapping on the bottom tool this can cause the bamboo not to rub as smoothly due to increased friction to counter the effects of the water printers sometimes apply a little bit of oil which sugasan is doing here by tapping the bottom against gauze which has some camellia oil absorbed into it she then rubs the tool against the felt sheath to evenly spread the oil around and remove any excess and then finally returns to rubbing the paper in the old days printers would even rub the bottom across their cheeks or hair to get natural oils for the same purpose the color may look barely noticeable now but when it contrasts with the later colors you'll see how important it is to the final image so though printing this area appears to be a quick process in the video it actually proved to be a bit more complicated occasionally the kento registration marks are misaligned you can see that the yellow gold does not fit inside the lines from the keyblock here this could be caused by just an accident in the carving changing weather or other external factors fortunately our printers are equipped to handle this with their own blade a kento nomi registration marks can be adjusted at any time sugasan today has to carve away just a little bit from the corner and bottom kento marks by the way it is also possible to move the kento up by adding small amounts of wood into a kento mark but we did not encounter that issue this time so we'll have to save that for another video after properly aligning the registration marks printing moved forward you can see the difference it makes to have everything lined up perfectly here on vibrant colors such as this vermilion i love to watch the color appear from the back of the page this one like the key block has a few narrow gaps where the printer needs to take extra care not to allow pigment to cool looking good cook this background layer is even larger than the yellow feathers sukasan printed earlier and therefore requires quite a bit of extra power you can see that she again starts the rubbing step by tapping the button onto the camellia oil to decrease the friction and make printing go more smoothly and quickly on these large areas that require additional pressure the printer also needs to be extra careful about not allowing the bottom to lean one way or another accidentally dipping into the cleared areas and pushing the paper down into the valleys where pigment is ready to hop onto the page [Music] so so this yellow on the falcon needs to be a bit grayer than the yellow suga's on printed earlier to get it right she uses the same cup of yellow as before then adds a bit of red and a bit more yellow and finally some sumi black pigment to add some grayness and dull the vibrancy of the color the distinct hint of grayness that comes from adding sumi to each color is one of the defining features of the look of traditional japanese prints early printmakers created a very wide range of colors and shades using just a limited palette of pigments and varying levels of suny [Music] you can see that this block is divided into two clearly visible color areas we will see her use the bluish area later when we have smaller areas to print we can conserve resources and carve areas needed for two different impressions on the same block face it is important that they are carved far enough apart usually about two finger widths so that when the printer is applying pigment they do not accidentally bump an area intended for another color as long as there is enough space and the carved areas are small you can fit quite a few impressions on each block face later i will point out when sugathan prints the third color on another of the blocks you may not have noticed was already being reused and here it is this block was previously used first for the yellow metal ornamentation on the perch and then for the bird's yellow feet here you can see sugasan using this metal tool to protect her registration mark from getting pigment on it as she brushes so close to the corner now we are adding pink circles to the flag where there was white space before there will be one more special impression on the flag later oh though to an untrained eye such as mine the pigment may look very dark in that cup an experienced printer like suga-san knows exactly how it will look when it goes onto the page oh you will notice here that this block has an area that is carved for the background of the cartouche early on in the planning of the series we thought we might add color to the cartouches and therefore had the backgrounds carved just in case after some testing and you can see the hint of leftover pigments remaining on the block we decided it would look better if left plain white so this black face is only getting used the once for this blue rope impression [Applause] basically you have seen this black face once before when zugasan printed the flag's pattern so here the blue adds some majesty to the falcon's appearance the final color impression is a special one called paru or pearl in japanese it doesn't actually contain any pearl at all but it usually includes mica as well as other substances and would be better described as pearlescent this pearl pigment is suspended directly in the same pink pigment mix that was used to print the flag as suga-san mixes it it turns a lovely silvery color but if she leaves it for just 30 seconds or so the pearl all sinks to the bottom as shown in this sped up footage so it is important to mix it and get it all suspended in the mixture right before placing it on the blocks usually when she is brushing her pigments you cannot see the pigment on the dark bristles of the brush but here with this reflective pearlescent pigment it's easy to see how much pigment is on the brush now let's see how it looks can't see it's luster too well from this angle so let's get a bit closer beautiful as is tradition with our subscription prints we ask our printers to emboss the covers and printers names on each print each one only takes a few seconds so let's watch her do it from a few different angles so here is another step i believe we have never included in any of our process videos before we want to show you today how we at mocha hong kong dry our prints and prevent them from warping as mentioned before we keep the prints moist throughout the entire printing process and to keep them from molding we freeze them at night but in the end we do indeed need to dry them so they can be enjoyed by customers for years to come here she starts with her stack of 80 prints next to one of our tables set up specifically for drawing prints she then carefully arranges the prints and rows the prints are put in pairs and placed on top of our very heavy cardstock which absorbs the moisture from the prints then she carefully adds several layers of the heavy board directly on top of the prints and starts another layer of prints again in pairs she follows this pattern several times until she reaches the end of the stack of prints she uses a white sheet of paper to write her name and what prints are drawing there she leaves it there in the drying stack overnight and it looks like another printer added prints on top of suga-thons once they have dried which may take one or two nights she carefully pulls them back out rotating them to face the same direction again and gets them and the blocks all wrapped up and ready to go the blocks then go to the next printer who will work on this print and the prints go to dave for inspection um [Music] um i know foreign [Applause] [Music] thank you

Channel: David Bull

Views: 102,159

Rating: 4.9560037 out of 5

Keywords: printmaking, mokuhanga, japan, japanese, craftsman, craftswoman, printmaker, traditional

Id: K8I2hnR8TG8

Length: 35min 55sec (2155 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 11 2021