Woodblock Printing Process - A Japan Journey

what bachmann may carry david ball here again in her socks a workshop in tokyo but not in my usual place for these videos i'm here tonight up on the third floor at one of the printing benches this is not my printing reports I don't have one of those these days this belongs to nuts kasuga and as you just saw in a cold open this is the place where she made her version of the most recent print in our Japan journey series the one representing summer G fields this will be a processed video we're going to watch along from start to finish from the blank sheet of paper up to the finished print as she reached each block in the sequence she called Cameron set to come up from downstairs where his offices bring his camera up and take a video of each step he did that and he also took back the print from her in each stage and scanned it so at the end of this video we'll have one of those slideshows where you can see the colors magically appearing step-by-step they've asked me to provide a commentary for this video and that'll be my job tonight I'm gonna be taking a look at their finished rough cut getting my headphones and microphone ready and providing a play-by-play as it were of what you're about to see let's get right to it do you see the bright orange color of the pigment that she splashed onto the wood right away here with this first block we are gonna see a demonstration of one of the most fundamental aspects to the traditional Japanese method that pigment was quite a vivid color but these pigments are transparent which means that they always allow everything below to show through and in the case of this initial color that will mean the tone of the paper just wait a moment until she's done here and you will then see what I mean here we go off it comes our vivid orange has been diluted and mixed as it were with the white tone of the paper those of you who have seen many of our other process videos might be a bit surprised at the order here zu Bassam did the light background color before the key block surely the key has to come first doesn't it well it certainly has to come before any of the detailed coloring in order that we can confirm that everything is lining up but if she had done this key first the quite heavy pressure she used on that background color might have caused these dark lines to bleed a little bit as you can see there are very few places here where registration is tight so she was able to do these two impressions in the wrong order you [Applause] can you understand the carved shapes on the wood here this impression is going to be one that kills two birds as it work the upper part of the image the part furthest from Tsubasa will be an aerial of open sky in the picture but the carve patterns on the lower part will turn out to be printing shadows shadows on the tea bushes and the human figures just wait a moment down there you'll see the result and presto the two color blocks now have given us three colors and this is all possible because of the transparency of the pigments that clear liquid you saw her splashing onto the wood which will be mixed together with the pigment is starch paste it's not there to act as a glue we simply needed to thicken out the pigment mix which would be too watery if left by itself it's the combination of the two that gives us a creamy substance that gets pressed deeply into the fibers of the paper by our printing tool and as you can see sometimes almost coming right through to the reverse side of the paper and it starts to come alive look at this remember this green that you are seeing here is a combination of that latest impression but it's on top of the initial one that toned the paper building color up in layers like this is a fundamental part of this Shin hunga genre [Music] the metal object she is using is there to help keep the wood clean in the area of the registration marks if she was a bit careless here the corner of the finished print would be stained with this pigment can you see the result of this one the main purpose of this block is the shadow tones in the clouds but it also added a slight touch to the figures in the pathways [Applause] you we've seen this screen before but we are getting it this time on only part of the tea fields in order to help us differentiate the closer and farther areas the little white slip of paper is simply there to ensure that even if the paper sags slightly washes printing it won't pick up any stains from the pigment I think if we asked sue Kazan about this she would politely suggest that the block could have been carved a little bit deeper at that point this one is a mistake not a mistake here in the printing but it was a miscalculation in the color separation stages this shadow on these trees appeared back at stage 3 when it looked fine now but it turned out to be just too light and we weren't able to dial it out back on the original block because it would have made the sky too deep so after our test printing we discovered this problem I just used the blank area of one of the blocks that cut the same shape again it adds one extra printing impressionist pseudo science work but you do what you have to do to get the job done [Music] so what do you think looks finished no that could be I guess but we have one more to do it's a kind of a bridge to a more traditional Yukio a style [Applause] that's it for the actual printing part but there are still a couple of other steps for this series we are using polymer plates to do embossing on the paper the first one here done with no pigment or paste impresses the title of the print ear reading summer tea fields and the second one is a plate that she repeats for every print in this series with the name of the Carver in this case young Johnson and the printers name herself sugah Natsuki you you so there you have it the finished print we're pretty happy here at Mohawk on with the way that this year series is turning out you know it's been just about a year last summer well we were starting the planning for this and Jed and I honestly speaking we were a bit concerned about it we weren't really sure if something like this would fly for years now we've been making prints based on of course famous videogame characters without their power would people be interested in our work as it turns out we needn't have worried within I think it was within two weeks of making the initial announcement last December we were fully subscribed to 200 people and since then we've been building a large waiting list now that's actually not a problem because as it turns out these wood blocks that cherry blocks are really really very hard and they're capable of making many many more prints over the years we're full up right now but as soon as the printers get caught up they will be getting these blocks out again making another edition and we'll be calling people on the waiting list to come and join us so there we are I think that's it for tonight I'm already at work on my next David's choice video and I know Cameron is at work he's not just planning a new video he's planning a new video series and he's terrified and he won't want me to talk about this just yet because it's really not well established but trust me it'll be something that is going to be a ton of fun both for the people watching and for us who are making it that's enough for now thanks very much for watching I'll get back to my bench downstairs goodnight for now you

Channel: David Bull

Views: 542,218

Rating: 4.9527636 out of 5

Keywords: Japanese printmaking, ukiyo-e, woodblock printing, woodblock printmaking, Jed Henry, shin hanga

Id: M8ma5q9-lA0

Length: 17min 14sec (1034 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 19 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/euicho]

His story is pretty incredible. His channel is full of gold like this as well. Highly recommend.

[u/dwintaylor]

David Bull is awesome!

[u/dominic_failure]

If you go a ways back, you can see the full process of making prints, from the Ukiyo-e series. I own a few, and they are incredible prints. Watching the process that lead to my own prints was a TON of fun.

[u/Zikes]

They stream on Twitch! https://www.twitch.tv/japaneseprintmaking

[u/suicidalkatt]

David is what I consider a true artisan.

The level of Craftsmanship and honor he displays to the craft and his teachers is palpable. I'm so happy I picked up one of his prints. It's absolutely beautiful.

[u/Thebazilly]

I love David Bull! He has a Twitch channel, too, where you can watch him carving. It's very relaxing watching.

[u/stakkar]

I bought a print of the great wave from this artist many years ago. The series on making that and the history is incredible

[u/Xaxxus]

This guy is like if bob ross lived in japan. Even looks a bit like him. As if the afro migrated to a beard.

[u/Mr_Smartypants]

Finally! I've always wondered how Hokusai, etc. got those amazing color gradients!