art, birds, nature

Thursday, March 13, 2025

Running To and From Line

I sometimes mention that I've been an abstract painter most of my life, though as I'm now in year 19 of naturalistic art and year 10 or more of printmaking that is starting to change. In any case in my artistic memory I remember when the only thing in my mind was pushing paint around and not paying as much attention to line. However drawing, which is primarily line, has also always been important to me.

It has seemed particularly important to me as a naturalistic artist, perhaps because there's more of a desire to capture the contour of things. In any case some types of printmaking lend themselves to line, like etching, engraving and perhaps lithography. And some do not. Carving into sometimes recalcitrant wood to produce a line is not the same as whipping a sumi brush pen across a piece of paper. One flows and the other doesn't.

Mokuhanga lends itself to shapes and color, but not really to painterly color. And though the expert professional carvers of the ukiyo-e period were incredibly accomplished in the sensitivity of the lines they could carve I certainly am not. And I think much contemporary mokuhanga, at least that I've seen in US, seems to favor shape and color over line. This is not at all surprising. Carving wood and getting sensitive, sinuous lines is quite difficult!!

My first notice of mokuhanga was contemporary work and that work focused on color and shape. I switched from linoleum block printing to mokuhanga partially due to my desire to abandon the oil-based solvents of so much of the ink I was using in linoleum block printing but also because I thought the colors of linoleum block couldn't begin to compare with the richness of the water-based color of mokuhanga prints.

Though I struggled mightily trying to learn mokuhanga on my own I immediately saw the rich color possibilities. But I also felt I wanted line in my work. I not only wanted it; I needed it. There had to be a counterpoint to the rich color areas! Just one problem: I didn't have sufficient carving skills to do that to my satisfaction. Much of my earlier moku hanga tried to find a way.

Often at the beginning of the year, probably because of often uninviting outdoor weather, I end up looking at the photographs I've taken over the year, taken for documentary reasons not artistic. I hate working from photos and rarely do. But this year I decided to work in sumi brush pen, wash from a waterbrush, and possibly watercolor as I looked through my thousands of photos. I really only wanted to notate ideas that the photos prompted in me. The fluidity of the brushpen, the ease with drawing washes out of their ink and the impossibility of erasure all gave me what I wanted: a quick sketch! The more I've done these, either in the field, or in my studio working from photos, the more I like them. They don't really remind me of photos but they're close enough to the subject portrayed to give me ideas about how to develop them in mokuhanga, or more rarely watercolor.

Again though there is that problem of line!!!! How could I get the same, often thin, sinous line from carved wood? Finally I decided to use the White-eyed Vireo sketch as the source of a mokuhanga. I sharpened all my chisels, cut more deeply and cleared out more deeply than ever before, and hoped for the best.

I am happy with my newest mokuhanga, at top, of the White-eyed Vireo. It has given me the bold line that to me just seems necessary to balance the rich color of mokuhanga. This print has also given me the confidence to consider some mokuhanga using warblers as subject, something I don't recall that I've done in print in many, many years.

Thursday, December 19, 2024

Running To and From Craft

Earlier this month I watched a nearly 5 hour long video on Youtube of David Bull with Taran Casey showing the live process from start to finish of a producing a mokuhanga. The focus, or multi-focus since there was a camera on each of them, was on carving. Though I think some people may be able to make mokuhanga prints without much carving for many people, including myself, it is perhaps the most important part.

And yet, for the mokuhanga prints from the Edo period, i.e. the ukiyo-e prints that are so famous, the artist was not the carver. The artist made the original sketch but there was also a carver, a printer and a publisher. I should add that I'm not at all an expert in any of this. But I don't think anything I'm saying is incorrect. But the carver was a professional carver just as the printer was a professional printer. Today with rare exceptions an artist making mokuhanga assumes all four roles. And he almost never is a professional carver!

If you look at prints from that time, especially original prints, you have to throw up your hands in surrender. You can never be as good as those carvers! Especially if you're also the artist, the printer and the publisher. But you can't help but admire them and learn from them.

In watching this video I did realize how incredibly much I have to learn about carving. The problem for me is that I'm not willing to devote the amount of time necessary to carve that well! There are too many other parts of art that are important to me. And yet I place great value on line in my prints and I hate to see the sinuous line of the drawing/painting that formed the basis of my idea for the print replaced by the choppy line of my poor, but greatly improved, carving!! There are parts of the drawing below, mainly the thin quick lines, that I cannot currently carve successfully. That makes it impossible for me to take up certain of my drawn and painted work as a subject for my mokuhanga, at least at the moment.

Thinking about craft reminded me of the similarity with my other artistic interest: birds. Though my artistic training is all in the fine arts, not in illustration, and in abstract art not representational art or wildlife art I now find myself making art that includes wildlife, especially birds, as its subject. As such I've looked at a lot of wildlife art, much of which leaves me quite cold, but much of which I also have to admire for its understanding of its subject. In other words I think there is also a craft to wildlife art, in the sense that it seems somewhat necessary to have some idea how birds in general and individual birds specifically are constructed. There is a certain knowledge and expertise involved in portraying birds or animals in a recognizable if not wholly realistic way. I admire artists who can do so, especially if their subjects retain a sense of life! I don't want to work that way or emulate them, but I do admire them.

So all in all I find myself both feeling a need to learn a craft, to run towards it, but also a need to avoid it at all costs, so that I don't get lost in knowledge and technique at the expense of art.

Or, as Delacroix says in his journal which I'm currently rereading: "But when something bores you leave it alone. Never seek after an empty perfection. Some faults, some things which the vulgar call faults, often give vitality to a work.”

It is so easy to go for an 'empty perfection.' To me that is about the worst artistic sin. On the other hand, as the recent video reminded me, it is also important to pay attention to craft. I wasn't trained to pay any attention to craft and I probably would have rebelled against it if I had been. But as I've made art over the years I've come to realize that 'craft' really is just the wisdom of earlier practitioners of the art I make, even if it differs stylistically. I hope to be able to use it more and more, but I also think that my 'vulgar faults' will probably always be with me and not be something I'm embarrassed by. I don't aspire to 'vulgar and vital' but it is always preferable to anything that also lacks vitality!

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

More Moku Hanga and 'The Natural Eye'

It's been so long since I finished my last moku hanga that I've already started a new one. That is only because, as I said in the last post, I didn't want to post anything more about moku hanga until I'd also posted about how important drawing from life and portraying birds especially, but really all of nature is to me. It is the other pole of my artistic interests.

At the top is my newest completed moku hanga, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers at Houston Meadow. I am still trying to find my way in moku hanga but I think this is the most successful yet because I'm able to both be true to the birds but also be true to art. And it doesn't look like a photo. For whatever reason that has always been very important to me. Given the rich history of art why limit yourself to imitating photos. And of course why limit nature to looking like a photo as well. Nature is far richer than that.

For somewhere near 15 years I have applied to 'The Natural Eye,' the annual exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists held at the Mall Galleries in London. My very first attempt was about 15 years ago and was done because many of my favorite bird artists showed in it. I had no hope of getting in, not the slightest. I really only applied because I admired the work of members of the SWLA so much. So imagine my surprise when I found out that I had gotten in. There was then a mad scramble to figure out how to package and ship it there. And then the deadline for delivery to Mall Galleries had come and gone and it was still in Customs, something I was absolutely unfamiliar with. Soon my elation changed to despair as I realized it would probably not make it out of Customs in time for the show. And then I was informed that it had and was even emailed photos by Mall Galleries on my work on the wall, to counter I guess my disbelief!!!

In any case I've applied almost every year since except when a VAT number was first required. That's why I can't remember exactly how long I've been applying. If I'm correct the two works in second photo will be entrants for the 11th time in the exhibition. It is a cliche because I say it each year, but I am thrilled once again to be in!

Why is that? It is the quality of the work of course but what is it that I see in it? I see artistic adventurousness and a love of nature as well as a familiarity with nature. On top of that I see artists that don't settle for cliched views of wildlife subjects, or cliched methods of representation. So much of the work seems to exhibit a real attempt to portray wildlife freshly, to get some sense of the life, beauty, vitality of the wildlife and its environment. This is not easy. It is hard enough to even attempt it, but even moreso to become successful at it. Most wildlife exhibitions I see don't really even attempt it, in my humble opinion. It is so refreshing to see an exhibition of many, many artists trying and succeeding. I say most of this based on viewing the exhibitions each year online but also on having attended the 2018 show on almost every day of the 5-6 days that we were there. It was thrilling.

Above the two entries that were accepted into the show is my newest moku hanga. It shows the very first proof of the very first block. So there is much that will change. But I am trying to keep this one a bit simpler and a bit more quickly done. We shall see if that happens.

Monday, August 26, 2024

Celebrating(?) One Million Views

Well who knows? Over one million views of this 16 year old blog if I calculate correctly and if I can trust the statistics. When I started it I was much more conscious of things like page counts, etc., though because I worked in IT I was also skeptical of them.

Eventually I just ignored them. They're really not germane to much when you are a visual artist. Why put much stock in numbers unless they reflect actual sales? And even though sales are important they aren't my main motivation. But a million is a million so it seemed worth mentioning here.

As an unplanned celebration of that here are two quick sumi brushpen sketches from today. They are based on my own photos. I was looking through some recent ones and something struck me about each of them. And I wanted to get that down on paper, not left in my memory, to most likely be forgotten. So here they are. They may or may not lead to an another artwork.

Tuesday, August 13, 2024

Drawn to Drawing

Sumi brushpen field sketch of Downy Woodpecker on feeder.
Copyright 2024 by Ken Januski

Two pencil drawings of Willow Flycatchers and based on my recent photos. My intent was to just draw what I saw and then see if I could identify it as a Willow by just looking at the drawing. Copyright 2024 by Ken Januski

I have recently finished a new mokuhanga. But the last time I did so I posted about it but said that I felt bad about not writing a post about drawing and drawing from life and posting it first.

So to remedy that situation I'm posting all these drawings and sketches before posting about the new moku hanga prints. In my moku hanga I often talk about the composition, the orchestration of formal elements, the technique, etc., etc I do so because they are all important to me. But in doing so I don't mention how important drawing, especially from life, and capturing some part of life through drawing are to me. It is sort of the primitive counterpart to the more 'sophisticated' act of artistic composing. For many people I think they choose one or the other. I firmly believe in, and love, both. So without many words other than these here are some of my drawings of the last 3-4 months. Only one of them includes many details, that of the Willow Flycatcher. I did that because I wanted to see if I could identify the resulting drawing as a Willow if I faithfully copied my photo. I rarely do that. But I find that in carefully drawing what I see I often see what I had previously missed! It is more about observation than art. Most of the others focus on capturing a sense of the bird, especially of its shape and movement.

Thursday, May 2, 2024

New Page, New Editions

I eventually printed two more editions of the White-throated Sparrow moku hanga. Above are the photos. Each print on one paper is slightly different from the ones on the two other papers. This is not some clever, or not so clever, marketing ploy on my part. I just wanted to experiment. When I have culled out the rejects from the newest two editions I will put them up for sale.

I have now been using moku hanga for seven years and it has been my primary medium for five or so I'd guess. And yet I don't have a page for it on this site, just some examples on the woodblock page. So finally today I've made one! About time. It is listed on the Gallery section on right side of this page as Moku Hanga.

Thursday, April 11, 2024

White-throated Sparrow Mokuhanga

I have finally finished an edition of a new mokuhanga print, 'White-throated Sparrow at Houston Meadow.' After years of just showing a closely cropped view of just one print I've recently gotten in the habit of showing part of the printed edition of my moku hanga instead. I'm doing that because so much of the technical effort that goes into each print goes into printing an edition with all prints looking more or less identical. This is quite different than the creative energy that goes into creating a print whose visual appearance I'm happy with. It is completely against my nature and goes against all my artistic training, which was as a painter not a printmaker, to worry about the similarity of each print. Because I spend a tremendous amount of time and effort coming up with a print I'm happy with it seems counterproductive, if not actually unenjoyable, to print an edition. But it does give me something tangible to show for all the effort and also allows me to sell more of them at lower prices. I also just take some pleasure in showing that I've become accomplished enough technically to actually print an edition. That wasn't always the case! And I think anyone who does want to see a larger view of just one print should be able to zoom in on this edition photo.

The new print is based on my looking at and sketching White-throated Sparrows over the last few years. I think I have some field sketches from 2023 but I didn't find them in a quick search so instead I'm showing this sumi brushpen this sketch of a White-throated Sparrow from 2022. It is nothing spectacular but I enjoy it and most of my quick sumi brushpen field sketches. Because they are done with live birds I have to concentrate on what I'm seeing since they can leave or move at any moment. And using the sumi brushpen forces me to simplify. Almost unconsciously I very quickly decide what to concentrate on and start there. So for me these sketches often have an electricity to them that I like.

Someone might ask why I bother to spend so much time looking at birds in the field and sketching them in the field and then don't worry too much about accuracy in the actual prints. To put it simply I don't think birds or anything needs to be put in a photographic straight jacket. I like to be able to understand birds, both their appearance and their behavior, but my goal as an artist is to interpret all of that through my own artistic sensibilities and artistic abilities. If I were doing traditional wildlife art or illustration I might be more interested in more classic field sketching. But I'm not. When I look at my more classical sketches from when I first started, excepting the many that were complete failures, I may like them but they don't inspire me to make a painting or print based on them. In the end I think all the looking and the brushpen field sketches get me to see the artistic possibilities in a bird, the things that I think might make a striking painting or print.

I also have done some watercolor sketches based on photos I've taken. My intent is to both explore the bird further and, I hope, to end up with a sketch I'm happy with. I often accomplish the first goal but rarely the second. So in the works from photos both above and below I'm really not happy with the finished work. But in both I explored something that I had noticed in much of my viewing of the bird in the field, perhaps the striping on the mantle, perhaps the underside coloring, etc., etc. There is so much to see in birds that is far more interesting than identification characteristics.

Oddly enough the little watercolor sketch above led me to the digital painting below. That in turn served as the basis for the new print. I think that it is all the transmogrifications that take place, from field sketch, to watercolor sketch from photo, to digital painting and perhaps back again that makes me feel that I've gotten far enough away from the bird and especially from any photo of the bird that it is relatively easy to feel free to make any changes that I think make sense artistically. I do not want to be limited by the bird or any other subject, though I also want to make sure that I am still in some way true to it. That is where all the looking at birds in field comes in. I think it gives me a pretty good intuitive sense of what they should look like.

The watercolor sketch below is a quick watercolor sketch from a photo of a White-throated Sparrow. Most of ny watercolor sketches are quick. I don't like labored watercolors. But as a consequence they are also often unsuccessful. Such is the case with this. Still it was one more step along the way to getting what to me is a successful mokuhanga. I am quite happy with it in the two fields which it inhabits: bird art and mokuhanga. I can't ask for more than that.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Moving Along at a Ferocious Speed

It has been a long time since I’ve posted, and also a long time since I’ve done a new print. As often happens after I post something I realize that I’ve left something unsaid. In this case it was the desire to put down what you see in the world around you, probably the same impulse that goes back to the cave drawings and perhaps earlier. That is a basic impulse of mine, along with the more ‘sophisticated’ idea of building a picture. They can seem quite contradictory but I don’t see any reason that you can’t have both.

There were many reasons for my hiatus in both printing and writing but a small one was based on this idea of putting down what you see. I had wanted to write more about that. But it is too late now and my focus is back on this new mokuhanga. I would just say that the impetus for it was looking at and drawing White-throats in the field this fall and winter. When I took some photos of a few in the snow I knew that it might be the start of a new print. Though the photo was the final impetus it was still the looking at and drawing White-throated Sparrows that made me think of them as a rich subject.

I am getting close to the final proofing of the print though there are stilll some changes ahead. The proof at top and on left are printed in Nishinouchi, the one on right on Shin Torinoko. When it is finished I’ll post my second post of 2024.

Saturday, August 19, 2023

A Passing Reference

Earlier today I was looking through some of my earliest blog posts trying to find one in which I talked about the problem of making a painting that had a bird as the subject. I never did find it but I did run across one on ‘building a picture.’ It touches on the same subject.

In my many years as an artist, but particularly in my early years, including all the time I was studying art in college, my art was about building pictures, not portraying something. During my many years as an abstract artist that remained true. One of my main concerns was making the picture ‘hang together,’ or as Matisse said to have every inch of the surface contribute something to the overall work.

As my work veered toward abstraction that seemed organic and seemed to reference the natural world in some way I also started considering those references when I built my pictures. An overall disillusionment with the art popular in galleries. and art magazines in the early 90s, coupled with my practice of drawing insects that I found in the garden, eventually led me to use birds as my primary subject.

As I did so I was surprised to find what an easy transition it was from abstraction to naturalism/realism! Except that I did have a fair idea of what birds looked like. And because I knew what they looked like it was easy to see how wrong my work often was! All the formal elements of abstraction could be used in realism. But accuracy was another matter.

To finally get to the point (!!) I also realized that I didn’t want to fudge my inability to draw birds with some degree of accuracy and realism by resorting to abstraction. So I spent 5-10 years trying to paint and draw them somewhat realstically.

In doing so I sublimated my interest in building a picture. You may guess where this is going. I no longer want to sublimate building a picture to accurate bird portrayal. Sometimes I still get a pretty good balance I think. But sometimes I don’t even want a balance. I want to abstract the bird, especially in the interests of the entire picture,

Such is the case with my newest moku hanga. It is based not only on a specific bird, a Red Phalarope, but also on the other birds even at the Wissahickon Waterfowl Preserve that day. It also includes the island on which a number of the birds were situated, a tree on that island, the very bright washed out colors of the day, and the bubbler/aerator which seemed to attract the phalarope. All highly abstracted, and all in the interest primarily of a visually exciting picture. Many of the subjects I just mentioned are seen as passing references, just an in music you may only need to use a note or two to recollect a much longer musical phrase.

In my journey through bird art I have tried a lot of things in order to actually build a good picture but also be true to the bird portrayed. Much of it has frustrated me because I felt giving up too much ‘art’ to keep the’ accuracy’, not just in terms of the bird itself but also in its environment and space. Many viewers might have actually felt the opposite, that I was letting ‘art’ get in the way of accuracy. But here’s the thing. Cubism is over 100 years old. Non-objective art is over 100 years old. Even Abstract Expressionism is over 50 years old. So much art has happened over the last 100-150 years. I really don’t think bird art or wildlife art does well to ignore that. On second thought bird artists and wildlife artists would probably not do well, at least financially! I think that is probably part of the problem. The buying audience is very conservative, with some exceptions. I know bird/wildlife artists who are not at all conservative and yet do very well in terms of sales. So it is possible. In any case I at least I know that I can’t ignore the last 150 years of art, sales or no sales. To do so is like being forced to wear someone else’s clothes. So my art continues to try to find a way to portray the natural world with a contemporary visual vocabulary.

Friday, April 28, 2023

A Pileated Moku Hanga

Soon after I finished my last moku hanga, at the end of January, 2023 I believe, I started thinking about a new print. Since nothing sprang to mind I started going through all of my old sketchbooks and came up with six to eight images that I thought had possibilities. Often they were based on something I'd seen while out birding. And before you knew it I went out birding and found something new that might work as the idea for a new print.

What I first saw were two Bufflehead and one male Common Merganser just above Flat Rock Dam on the Schuylkill River near where I live in Philadelphia. As I looked at them in the distance though I heard a Pileated Woodpecker calling behind me. I didn't look for it though, instead concentrating the waterfowl. My guess is that I was trying to see them well enough to get a mental image that I could then use as a subject for.a memory sketch/field sketch. I don't seem to have any so my guess is that they were just too far away and instead I concentrated on taking photos, even though neither are rare birds.

Finally they flew off and so I turned around to look for the Pileated, which was no longer calling and which I assume had flown off. But no, there he was at the top of a distant snag. Of course once I saw him he flew off. He was not the first I've seen along the Schuylkill. BUT they are the first I've seen there in over 25 years! A few weeks earlier I'd seen one flying over the Schuylkill, hugging the shore as he flew. It was just such an odd sight. I'm much more used to seeing them deep in forests!

In any case I started toying with idea of using the waterfowl and Pileated as the subject of my next print. Though I know Pileateds well I know them to ID, not to draw. Drawing or painting them, even when highly abstracted, requires more complete knowledge. So I did a number of studies from my photos which are above.

I also kept working on a sketch of the entire print. One of the main decisions I made was to make the entire picture one seen from behind the Pileated, looking down on the Pileated, the Schuylkill and the waterfowl in it

Recently I've found myself developing compositional studies on my iPad using Procreate. A stylus is incredibly limited compared to a pen or pencil or paint brush. But used in conjunction with Procreate it is an incredibly quick way of sorting through, and modifying, different ideas for a print or painting. I"m sure it is limiting in ways I don't know about, leading me to make decisions based on the medium itself rather than the idea I would have without these digital tools. But right now I'm not worried about it.

Once I started the print, and the eight wood blocks I used to create it I didn't look back at the digital version. At that point the medium in front of me took over: watercolor, or watered down gouache and Japanese printmaking paper, washi. It is such a beautiful medium that only a masochist would ignore it and let the digital version be his guiding light as to where to take the print.

I have to say it is still bizarre to think of myself as a printmaker and to think in terms of editions. I've always been a one-off painter. You only make one of a thing. All the effort goes into the final product. You don't spend anytime thinking about what you need to do to be able to reproduce an identical image more than once. It has driven me nuts. Until I sell a print made 5-10 years ago. At that point I'm glad I've taken the time and made the effort to print an edition. And for those who don't know there is no printing press involved. I am the printing press, along with my baren. My guess is that it is far easier to make identical prints, without blemishes and mistakes, using a printing press than it is the way I do it with a hand held baren. And I have ruined many, many, many prints by some errant sloppiness or lack of focus that can occur when doing all printing by hand, with no mechanical help.

That is why I now tend to show photos of the entire printed edition. It was so much work and it is such an accomplishment!! It also helps explain why moku hanga often is, and always should be, more expensive. There is just so much more work involved and so much greater risk of failure.

My old oil-based reduction linocuts and woodcuts were also full of risk and they were also printed by hand. I've never owned a press. But one of the additional appeals of moku hanga is that it seems to encourage a slower, less frantic pace, regardless. of complexity and possibility of failure. It seems to encourage a more human pace of production that does reduction printmaking. I'm starting to be experienced enough with it to be able to proceed at a saner and more human pace. Perhaps with time this would have also happened if I'd continued with reduction prints using traditional methods. But I doubt it would have ever gotten to the point I have with moku hanga.

A somewhat calm printmaker: something I never at all envisioned or desired and yet here I am, and very content with it.

The new print will be for sale in my Etsy store sometime about mid-May.

Recent Exhibitions

Sumi-Fusion Exhibition at The 4th International Moku Hanga Conference, Nara, Japan - December 2021
The Natural Eye - 58th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists, London, UK, October-November 2021
The Natural Eye - The 57th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists, London, UK - October-November 2020
The Natural Eye - The 56th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists, London, UK, October/November 2019
The Natural Eye - The 55th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists, London, UK, October/November 2018
The Natural Eye - The 53rd Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists, London, UK - October-November 2016
The Natural Eye - The 52nd Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildife Artists, London, UK - October-November, 2015
The Natural Eye - The 49th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists, London, UK - November 2012
The Natural Eye - The 48th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists, London, UK - October-November 2011
Wild at Art - Three Person show with Melanie Fisher, Ken Januski and Lynnette Shelley, Manayunk Roxborough Art Center, Philadelphia, PA - November, 2012