New Print completed

I'm just about to start trimming and packaging my next print.

It's based on a simple Hiroshige print I came across in a book I have, which I reduced down and played around with in Photoshop before pasting it onto the blocks to carve. On the original print, the sparrow was printed the same red colour as the flower petals. I've changed it to something a little more 'sparrowy'.

There are 4 magnolia blocks in this print, the black key block, red, grey and one block which had the brown and deep red seal. The black and grey block are both printed with sumi ink.

The image is approx. 6x16cms (2.5x6 inches) and is one of my smallest, but most finely detailed prints to date. The edition will be around 50 or 60.

I'm pleased with the result as this was a real learning exercise for me. I wanted to do some tight, detailed work and get a really even finish to the printing of the colours.

This print has taken me some way up that very long and interesting path.

I'll be doing more prints which are based on Japanese images in the future (how better to learn the process than by following the experts?) but for now, I want to create some new designs based on the landscape and wildlife around my home town in the Ribble Valley. The public response I've got from prints based on my own designs as opposed to 're-creations' of old images has given me the confidence to work on my own ideas.

My re-working of existing images, mainly from old Japanese woodblock print ehon (picture books) has been a kind of correspondance course across the centuries, and I'll always return to them to learn, reproduce prints and to seek out endless pleasure and inspiration. There really is nothing to compare to these humble looking little books in the West. Here, there has always been some kind of mental block to the idea of a book which is completely devoid of words. It's an alien concept to most people, sadly.

I'm sure the Japanese influence will still be visible in my new prints too though. As other European and American printmakers and artists discovered towards the end of the 19th and start of the 20th Century, once you've exposed yourself to the amazing breadth, vibrancy, energy and quality of Japanese woodblock print images it's impossible to see the world around you in the same way again. A bit like looking at the sun too long, but it a really good way.

Before that though, I need to print up my Grace Prints. The blocks are waiting, the proofs are done. I just need to set aside a day or two to print the edition.

Ribble Valley Art Open Exhibition Update

Just a quick one.
The framed copy of my 'Ribble Valley Winter View' sold on the opening day of the exhibition!
I'm very pleased, and I hope the purchaser will be too. I'm selling unframed copies of the print in the Gallery/Museum shop.

Print and Sculpture in Exhibition

Recently I submitted a couple of woodblock prints and a sculpture for selection in the first Ribble Valley Open Exhibition. The exhibition is open to all artists of any media, the only criteria being that the artist be resident in the Ribble Valley area. (You'd be surprised how many there are!)

I received notification about a month ago that one of my prints, 'Ribble Valley Winter View', which some of you out there received as my Christmas print last year, and my sculpture 'Resting Figure' had both been selected for exhibiting.

My winter view print has been doing very well for itself, and is now in it's second edition of 60 prints. (I'm not a big fan of artificially limiting my prints to force the price up. Prints are a democratic medium, and as such, should be printed and priced with the same philosophy.)

I was asked if it could be featured in an article in the English language Japanese magazine, 'Japan Close Up' . They wanted to do a piece on foreign artists who were inspired by Japanese art, and found me on Etsy!

Susan Ashworth, of the Lancashire Museums Organisation (co-curators of the Ribble Valley Open)which manage all the museums and art galleries which fall within Lancashire County Council's responsibility called me a couple of weeks ago to ask if they could buy a copy of the print for the Lancashire Museums' permanent collection, which was great. I now have one of my prints in the collection of Lancashire's art gallery archives. I'm happy to admit it quite made my day! When Susan arrived to collect the print, she also bought one for herself, and mentioned that they're considering printing a postcard or Christmas card of the image at some time in the future.

I've included a copy of the back and front of the poster/leaflet for the exhibition. The sculpture in the image is mine.

It's made from cast concrete (about 12 inches high and very heavy) and patinated to look like bronze. The sculpture was originally created in clay, from which a 2 piece plaster mould was created. The clay was scooped out, and the mould cleaned, before very carefully pouring a finely mixed concrete into it. When the concrete has dried, the plaster mould is very carefully chipped away to free the cast sculpture which is cleaned and finished.

The technique results in only one sculpture from the waste mould, and the clay original is also destroyed during the process which makes the finished sculpture a unique one off.

I have one framed copy of the print in the exhibition for sale, and 50 unframed woodblock prints from the same edition packaged for sale in the Museum/Gallery shop. The exhibition runs all the way through until the 10th of January next year, so I'm hoping some of the visitors would like the print as a little Christmas stocking filler.

Grandad's Japanese Painting

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that my late Grandad, Stanley Mason had an interest in Japanese art. I didn't really know about this until recently when I was talking to my Dad about him, and the pictures I remembered hanging in his house.

One of those was one which I was suprised to hear he had painted himself in the late 1950's. It's now owned by my Cousin, but she was kind enough to email me a copy, which you can see here.

I've been told he was friends with a Japanese gentleman he knew in Liverpool at the time (I wish I could trace him) who helped him.

He also took a lot of landscape photos, mainly in the Lake District and wanted his compositions to have a Japanese style to them (most probably Hiroshige) and as such never wanted people to be looking into the camera, but rather looking into and responding to the landscape around them. Much to the annoyance of my Granny, apparently.

So, the question arises, is there any connection between my Grandad's interest in Japanese art and mine? Is it just a coincidence? Lot's of people who aren't related to me obviously like it; but is there, perhaps, something in the way my Grandad's brain and mine that made us almost predisposed to be attracted to Japanese art and prints, and for us both to want to create our own art based on it?

I don't know. I have a vague, unformed theory of something I call Hereditary Memory. Memories or feelings, which, like physical and mental attributes are perhaps passed through the generations. The reason why some people feel inexplicably called to the sea or the countryside because our ancestors were probably either farmers or fishermen. My Grandad's father was a printer and print compositor as well.

My Grandad was a fascinating man. While living in Liverpool he was very closely involved with the Folk music clubs and, so I have been told, played a part in Paul Simon's first UK visit as a young unknown singer songwriter. My cousin has a set of old reel to reel recordings of Paul Simon's performances in the Folk clubs which I've never heard.
In Paul Simon's song, 'Homeward Bound' (which he wrote while sitting at Widnes Railway Station during that first UK tour) are the lines '...every step is carefully planned for a poet and a one-man band...' and I like to think he's refering to my Grandad there. It's also slightly amusing to think that my Grandad played a part in making Paul Simon miserable enough to write that song!
Curiously, here's a print from a Japanese woodblock print book I saw online recently which looks just like my Grandad.

The Art of Japan Exhibition

We seem to be doing very well for exhibitions of woodblock prints in the North West of England this year. If you hurry, you can catch the last few days of "The Art of Japan" an exhibition of woodblock prints and paintings at the Peter Scott Gallery at Lancaster University.

The exhibition is made up of prints on loan from the Blackburn Art Gallery collection and the University's own collection and include original works by Hokusai, Hiroshige, Utamaro, Eisen, Koson and many others. There are examples of Ukiyo-e prints, including Hokusai's "Great Wave", "Red Fuji" and "Fuji with Lightning" and also some beautiful surimono (Monkey & Turtle), Sumo prints, silk painting and some lovely examples of prints from the Shin Hanga movement.

Monkey and Turtle Surimono

The real highlight for me though were 3 woodblocks in a glass cabinet, and one in particular. It was an original block of a page from one of Kitao Masayoshi's abbreviated drawing books! I never thought I'd ever see one of those. I would never have imagined that any would have even survived over the years, but there it was. It had obviously been cut in half, as a block for a book would have 2 pages on it, and it had also been painted white with the relief lines painted black at some time in it's history.

The exhibition runs until May 30th, late night Thursday until 9.00pm.

Lancashire's Great Ukiyo-e Collection.

Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery

Images provided by Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council for the Cotton Town digitisation project: http://www.cottontown.org/.

Opened in June 1874, the early French Gothic styled Museum and Art Gallery in Blackburn, Lancashire, UK is the home of over 1000 original woodblock prints and many other printed gems by William Morris and illuminated manuscripts, icons, oil and watercolour paintings. They even have an Egyptian Mummy and a stuffed greyhound!

It's the woodblock prints and the other printed books and manuscripts in the Hart Gallery that are the highlight though, and the Cotton Town website is filled with lots of information on it all.

I'm proud to have this Art Gallery within 30 minutes of where I live.

Here are the links to the Japanese Print pages:

Intro page to Japanese Prints

Development of colour printing in Japanese woodblock prints

Reprints, colour and deterioration in Japanese prints

The care of Japanese prints

Famous Views from the 60 Odd Provinces intro

The 53 stations of theTokaido Road ‘Tokaido Gojusan Tsugi No Uchi’ into and images of all 53 prints

'Famous Views of the 60 Odd Provinces' all the images from the Blackburn Museum collection for this series.

Horai Temple in the Steep Mountains of Mikawa Province