tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36180258961036456332024-03-19T01:07:02.273-04:00art, birds, naturePrints and Art from NatureKen Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.comBlogger869125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-30428562522201850802024-03-10T16:43:00.001-04:002024-03-10T16:43:09.486-04:00Moving Along at a Ferocious Speed<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLI3aslssr4KzKJJeW3cCQi-l9GrCdTOWOHPbAjmh7tN9LVPLgDwqhZjl9g-z9q3EwZDoMF6Y4AKQd7287mzsauFrWJuoBgaWAY_nSHE_a1fk7UjLc4Ho0nAe9mxud4FIft9ZX78ObjLJRcQWAlZ6cV8qd_JQC-DEokCwE1-1jWA4hPRqlpCxf6FtNAqCp/s2048/wtspMH7ColorProof031024-1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1404" data-original-width="2048" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLI3aslssr4KzKJJeW3cCQi-l9GrCdTOWOHPbAjmh7tN9LVPLgDwqhZjl9g-z9q3EwZDoMF6Y4AKQd7287mzsauFrWJuoBgaWAY_nSHE_a1fk7UjLc4Ho0nAe9mxud4FIft9ZX78ObjLJRcQWAlZ6cV8qd_JQC-DEokCwE1-1jWA4hPRqlpCxf6FtNAqCp/s320/wtspMH7ColorProof031024-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Three working proofs of new mokuhanga of a White-throated Sparrow seen at Houston Meadow. copyright 2024 by Ken Januski<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>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.<p></p>
<div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-53242469757892141842023-08-19T15:36:00.005-04:002023-08-26T10:41:01.251-04:00A Passing Reference<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSaJz4Tu6asei8FbxYsxgpzm5XdhzTF1MKzi3F7H3RSN8pKfhvRVNgxmnALNWlO-JcHys0XfJPqYIKMYSr0Ywuh0eC3Lc6uBQl-eQyuY87WZQgq96OJOFxMeNMeGvd-QopISgYLGdlAi55OuDZNIhuw0oG0wXocx_-vaEY1b-NqVZhEr1114LiaZB3xbRO/s2600/redPhalaropeMHED081423-1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1933" data-original-width="2600" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSaJz4Tu6asei8FbxYsxgpzm5XdhzTF1MKzi3F7H3RSN8pKfhvRVNgxmnALNWlO-JcHys0XfJPqYIKMYSr0Ywuh0eC3Lc6uBQl-eQyuY87WZQgq96OJOFxMeNMeGvd-QopISgYLGdlAi55OuDZNIhuw0oG0wXocx_-vaEY1b-NqVZhEr1114LiaZB3xbRO/s320/redPhalaropeMHED081423-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red Phalarope at Wissahickon Waterfowl Preserve. Moku Hanga by Ken Januski. Copyright 2023. 9x12 inches.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> 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.<p></p><p>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.</p><p> 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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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,</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-1127366163959460082023-04-28T11:58:00.001-04:002023-04-28T11:58:59.272-04:00A Pileated Moku Hanga<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMi-tdwFDVHT_ItoE5sHrZR9sFlQ_Dok6UFsnO5gLzNMjEwInF7ayrQQ3XVghBLN68iF2YwpCK8RINv8J-tErkO0rZvqgMag5uB2QtwiDalc4rz84zMbcPpiyzuxcz_qwaHLB8zs3RRjMe5PQpZSmHICH29ywGJ0kJkEf71rcJMTgez6rPsVwzl8FQDQ/s3071/piwoMHEDdry042523.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3071" data-original-width="2329" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMi-tdwFDVHT_ItoE5sHrZR9sFlQ_Dok6UFsnO5gLzNMjEwInF7ayrQQ3XVghBLN68iF2YwpCK8RINv8J-tErkO0rZvqgMag5uB2QtwiDalc4rz84zMbcPpiyzuxcz_qwaHLB8zs3RRjMe5PQpZSmHICH29ywGJ0kJkEf71rcJMTgez6rPsVwzl8FQDQ/s320/piwoMHEDdry042523.jpg" width="243" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pileated Woodpecker at Flat Rock Dam moku hanga. Copyright 2023 by Ken Januski.</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div>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.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ME2tIJRAXQYBSdqZsfZXTLDj9CJoH1w2CKbMHm41WIVOzjk4vL6cJ0mrGm202agraPV8d6c8haPGLC6x7RCGJYVHyDNxjjOXtRBaOJv3cWFvT7RdEUuepMxlPvUt5I6bLBpi3uTXIYZHoYPeAzfMDbVWaAn6_nYKsqTEAvXPMyKV8nn7xfgq8jWMmw/s3782/piwoBuffCompSketch022423.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3782" data-original-width="2922" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ME2tIJRAXQYBSdqZsfZXTLDj9CJoH1w2CKbMHm41WIVOzjk4vL6cJ0mrGm202agraPV8d6c8haPGLC6x7RCGJYVHyDNxjjOXtRBaOJv3cWFvT7RdEUuepMxlPvUt5I6bLBpi3uTXIYZHoYPeAzfMDbVWaAn6_nYKsqTEAvXPMyKV8nn7xfgq8jWMmw/s320/piwoBuffCompSketch022423.jpg" width="247" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil compositional sketch of Pleated, Buffleheads, Common Merganser and Flat Rock Dam. Copyright 2023 by Ken Januski.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">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.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">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! </div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje06yoB5C1sr2YaBvVM-QmDthExMkzKt_W9k1QQxjdlMBX19cLS8eivRDUaeSZo2Oec2uzt_vh3VCjumSqOtTixCL3SaGmX9OqOHNFGcEvsmZH00bSe6vLC1MRH60w9vUrIOkDaCBnQrpyPY5-SSDsxROo8Jb9xlHf7V05D0CutkVNP92aHzjxPhxuAw/s3807/pileatedSketcges022323-2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2713" data-original-width="3807" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje06yoB5C1sr2YaBvVM-QmDthExMkzKt_W9k1QQxjdlMBX19cLS8eivRDUaeSZo2Oec2uzt_vh3VCjumSqOtTixCL3SaGmX9OqOHNFGcEvsmZH00bSe6vLC1MRH60w9vUrIOkDaCBnQrpyPY5-SSDsxROo8Jb9xlHf7V05D0CutkVNP92aHzjxPhxuAw/s320/pileatedSketcges022323-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil studies of Pileateds from my photos. Copyright 2023 by Ken Januski.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy8Iz9BTWrl7g7NYMCGLl-osTNSs91GKIz61BENKXEYGHh3OJRnGv8LTyp8xNA86cOyRWn2JudvSraZ4SFAyEnWnYTmgBUa2Bjgza73rhS6BdN3WwGevT3wFncYOUOZwOupiIvYHzEn-6QoV6MlNQc7oav7LVsIFLtyg_g7CsRiLbeUPIzJW5jXifJnQ/s3853/pileatedSketcheso22323-1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2617" data-original-width="3853" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy8Iz9BTWrl7g7NYMCGLl-osTNSs91GKIz61BENKXEYGHh3OJRnGv8LTyp8xNA86cOyRWn2JudvSraZ4SFAyEnWnYTmgBUa2Bjgza73rhS6BdN3WwGevT3wFncYOUOZwOupiIvYHzEn-6QoV6MlNQc7oav7LVsIFLtyg_g7CsRiLbeUPIzJW5jXifJnQ/s320/pileatedSketcheso22323-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil studies of Pileateds from my photos. Copyright 2023 by Ken Januski.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw-TG6qsXtvsi7XhxVKhupN3KuRBVAExQe9dbIGtgtrCAZ32AXBV49p-k39ETOHbIzDyz0kHU8V7yDWO3uTGBVIA4fn7fZNyZpvfUOZ4PB4GdeQIIpIiiCfgx0axpxkgT1YAmczOBiVDeLWILxVmtPp5U2agTQtx0qgUrXPtJ2PLSTtg8_hKnkONqmug/s2747/pileatedWoodpeckerSketch030223.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2747" data-original-width="1641" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw-TG6qsXtvsi7XhxVKhupN3KuRBVAExQe9dbIGtgtrCAZ32AXBV49p-k39ETOHbIzDyz0kHU8V7yDWO3uTGBVIA4fn7fZNyZpvfUOZ4PB4GdeQIIpIiiCfgx0axpxkgT1YAmczOBiVDeLWILxVmtPp5U2agTQtx0qgUrXPtJ2PLSTtg8_hKnkONqmug/s320/pileatedWoodpeckerSketch030223.jpg" width="191" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil studies of Pileateds from my photos. Copyright 2023 by Ken Januski.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTwUOkpdxj8Oe-xEHTC1KadBMvDXdT8hTuDDu81SD9dGClCQSjl56-fmGrh4J_1sfWeY5ySTMLhsB2QNQBupGuariDaCpKt2Snh7cvCuzp7zcJa7LjndLpdz76XHTPUv9XG0R88vSw3zfKx5JVMrRtH85TN-Vin9OesUM3e8I-PtCzhQJtsvx0Rc9Pxg/s3143/piwoBuffComrFlatRockDamPencil022223.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3143" data-original-width="2442" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTwUOkpdxj8Oe-xEHTC1KadBMvDXdT8hTuDDu81SD9dGClCQSjl56-fmGrh4J_1sfWeY5ySTMLhsB2QNQBupGuariDaCpKt2Snh7cvCuzp7zcJa7LjndLpdz76XHTPUv9XG0R88vSw3zfKx5JVMrRtH85TN-Vin9OesUM3e8I-PtCzhQJtsvx0Rc9Pxg/s320/piwoBuffComrFlatRockDamPencil022223.jpg" width="249" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil compositional sketch of Pleated, Buffleheads, Common Merganser and Flat Rock Dam. Copyright 2023 by Ken Januski.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>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.<div><br /></div><div>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<br /><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh2g-m5Il3d_hbWD-aVOxYRUQ05FzRtlIFuzklr6wH38OsoN34b70CvH4M4E5jJ95YUI3SQmvBqkZeMquEMLmR5W03OQej-VJrj622zGz_Xy5glRFvkZik5xynUU--ZKvq0lbSjMNkrkgRRsVEho48rK_rL2To6UqGYCBKUGidaSjcuANlxkUvVxHYlA/s2048/pilestedBuffTemplatePRO022623Cropped.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1585" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh2g-m5Il3d_hbWD-aVOxYRUQ05FzRtlIFuzklr6wH38OsoN34b70CvH4M4E5jJ95YUI3SQmvBqkZeMquEMLmR5W03OQej-VJrj622zGz_Xy5glRFvkZik5xynUU--ZKvq0lbSjMNkrkgRRsVEho48rK_rL2To6UqGYCBKUGidaSjcuANlxkUvVxHYlA/s320/pilestedBuffTemplatePRO022623Cropped.jpg" width="248" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Digital compositional and color study using Procreate on iPad. Copyright 2023 by Ken Januski.<br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXfZjIAAE-YiAIo6DZwGma4McYsJS5e-PJDJGgLvTDOFWMXMJMuAweZiC2qv7ioL8UBw1GXUJYwxiszuRfZQqp__pzEYv3GwQqeTBm6rFOcwC6N5OgY7RBDSjA3o1NmzwMTr-NxudWJhW5aOJIoNO2prEAJeHWETKAqZ5sZckL5I3sdaZjpL_gUruSYA/s4032/piwoMHFullED042523.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXfZjIAAE-YiAIo6DZwGma4McYsJS5e-PJDJGgLvTDOFWMXMJMuAweZiC2qv7ioL8UBw1GXUJYwxiszuRfZQqp__pzEYv3GwQqeTBm6rFOcwC6N5OgY7RBDSjA3o1NmzwMTr-NxudWJhW5aOJIoNO2prEAJeHWETKAqZ5sZckL5I3sdaZjpL_gUruSYA/s320/piwoMHFullED042523.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All 24 prints of the Pileated at Flat Rock Dam moku hanga. Copyright 2023 by Ken Januski<br /><br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>A somewhat calm printmaker: something I never at all envisioned or desired and yet here I am, and very content with it.</div><div><br /></div><div>The new print will be for sale in my Etsy store sometime about mid-May.<br /><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /> <p></p></div></div>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-80645631309903358992023-01-13T15:56:00.003-05:002023-01-13T15:56:32.888-05:00Orchestral Conductor or Courtroom Artist?<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPv9dWzdqT8PyRhGmbPfs5tpWK2zrsbTsx-nzI7LOnuODUziWW_mb-8ijoY2eFpF4vuWDAyouH3vk14almTLAfeoKhMn8pBz6_lEqdP-Uu3K23OoFXXrKz-uSJxf7fUlg00Q1_CCB_j66mtgdxIryAqm6INCYUU03bvqzz7TfPe2UviCbY-bSAIF1luw/s2353/3brant3BBPLMKED111522C.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1774" data-original-width="2353" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPv9dWzdqT8PyRhGmbPfs5tpWK2zrsbTsx-nzI7LOnuODUziWW_mb-8ijoY2eFpF4vuWDAyouH3vk14almTLAfeoKhMn8pBz6_lEqdP-Uu3K23OoFXXrKz-uSJxf7fUlg00Q1_CCB_j66mtgdxIryAqm6INCYUU03bvqzz7TfPe2UviCbY-bSAIF1luw/s320/3brant3BBPLMKED111522C.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Three Brant, Three Black-bellied Plover. Moku Hanga. Copyright 2022 by Ken Januski.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7uYBUzMD59fP1UkE8MFpC9d2EJ3XEnNrtdliI9QEpatzOq2WE4ls32CPPxsYBNOAts7Ae2_orsvT-0Vu-jWXAhJvPp3Hf5xbOO3g0IU1hcTZ2FC4zrpYHNApIiOffFfpQhkbjANyKuq_58Y-2MRmRiBTHdmagc0UxM5HBrNmRoUmPIK7CM_u0g7VWJw/s2334/nocaTorinokoED011323PE1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1678" data-original-width="2334" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7uYBUzMD59fP1UkE8MFpC9d2EJ3XEnNrtdliI9QEpatzOq2WE4ls32CPPxsYBNOAts7Ae2_orsvT-0Vu-jWXAhJvPp3Hf5xbOO3g0IU1hcTZ2FC4zrpYHNApIiOffFfpQhkbjANyKuq_58Y-2MRmRiBTHdmagc0UxM5HBrNmRoUmPIK7CM_u0g7VWJw/s320/nocaTorinokoED011323PE1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Northern Cardinal on Tomato Cage. Moku Hanga. Copyright 2023 by Ken Januski.</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>Boy it has been a long time since I've written here. That was not deliberate. The delay was due to the fact that almost as soon as I finished my newest moku hanga, 'Three Brant, Three Black-bellied Plover' at top I started thinking about doing another moku hanga, 'Northern Cardinal on Tomato Cage', which is immediately above. It is not so much that they are related visually but that they are related in terms of the contradictions in my artistic motivation.</p><p>Sometimes I want to orchestrate my art work, like a conductor, matching this color here with that one there, this shape with that shape, etc., etc. It might sound very formal but I think it is also what gives both joy and delight to so much art. 'Three Brant, Three Black-bellied Plover' uses the same blocks that created the print below, 'Brant and Black-bellied Plover on Nummy Island.' It happened almost by accident when I used some overlapping color on the original print and liked what I saw. But I felt it didn't fit in with the general direction of the print so I got rid of it, thinking that I might come back to it in another version. That is how the print at very top, 'Three Brant, Three Black Bellied Plover', started. </p><p>But I didn't want to carve all new blocks, nor did I want to re-carve the old. blocks in case I decided to print another edition of the first print. That meant that I had to set myself some odd formalistic limits in the second print. I wanted to use the same blocks, but with more overlapping color, without modifying the blocks. The answer was to print some of the old blocks upside down and right side up, and to selectively ink them, that is not print everything on the block. Oddly enough I was listening to some Bach fugues at the same time and realized that there was at least some similarity. I speak from the perspective of a non-musician who enjoys music. My understanding of a fugue is that it takes one or more 'subjects', then modifies them perhaps playing them backwards or in some similar but creative and musical variation I wasn't trying to create a visual fugue. I couldn't even if I wanted to. But I was pursuing a formal method: theme and variation. If it is a fit subject for some of the greatest music in the world then it certainly is a fit subject for my art. </p><p>All of this gets back to at least part of this blog's title "Orchestral Conductor"... This formal playing has been part of almost all art I've done, even as a child. Strict representation was never all that important to me. In fact representing the real world has only become important to me artistically as I've gotten older. Sometime this summer or early fall I did a sketch from life in the garden of a young Cardinal on a tomato trellis(second photo after this text). I loved it! It doesn't look like a photo, something I have almost no interest in. But it does capture at least for me the sense of seeing that young Cardinal. But is is so, so different in terms of artistic motivation than orchestrating visual elements like a conductor.</p><p>This motivation I think is a bit more similar to that of a courtroom artist. It's not the best simile in the world since a good deal of accuracy is wanted in a courtroom sketch. But because those sketches are done quickly from life they almost never look like a photo. But they can be exciting. In any case I find my now field sketches quite exciting, though not all are successful. Some are dreadful. That happens with working quickly, especially in ink, with a subject that may disappear at any moment. But for me there is a tremendous artistic excitement in them. I had that field sketch of the Cardinal of the tomato cage in my mind as I did the second version of the Brant and Black-bellied Plover. And I didn't want to post anything on that second version until I'd also done a moku hanga based on the young cardinal. That took another 3 months or more. I finished it yesterday.</p><p>You could say my work is erratic. Perhaps people do. But to me it is just a continuing synthesis of varied interests and motivations. I'm somewhere between and orchestra conductor and a court sketch artist using moku hanga as my medium.</p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLFVxwdv5vr4QyjlU_sA95wOkZuoaXQGrzekLDxyDFGGhj9Z0Iyk18ERQ6YqYwJ5LR7H0Kgql_NRCKpWRiEfacclbq2UxiLB57e7WqBzxWRcwwiuG1bQIizaiOIe3m5sErbdfgShFnQ6r8KG11yzDpVicqSeEFyoyFtgJwJdMNwLmd4FrwnDbWgGaskQ/s2183/BrantBBPLTorinokoED082222.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1644" data-original-width="2183" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLFVxwdv5vr4QyjlU_sA95wOkZuoaXQGrzekLDxyDFGGhj9Z0Iyk18ERQ6YqYwJ5LR7H0Kgql_NRCKpWRiEfacclbq2UxiLB57e7WqBzxWRcwwiuG1bQIizaiOIe3m5sErbdfgShFnQ6r8KG11yzDpVicqSeEFyoyFtgJwJdMNwLmd4FrwnDbWgGaskQ/s320/BrantBBPLTorinokoED082222.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brant and Black-bellied Plover on Nummy Island. Moku Hanga. Copyright 2022 by Ken Januski</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7gA4uwFCLnr_LB7ynBFXWhVNTDAykgq8_KPEZeoVnnYuPYiQRAKblBpboPnYiyQXZ-c2r1J2qOPRW75jA0JCRQYxe_VwFbZnM26dNUeeFUi2GJEbxUd1ssd0yQ0V7ggso7YtSdC41WITKcIWNSZ6l94qgsx4E2Q2Okzk3L94ZvZCT_Ba61lpSUPQOfg/s2426/juvenileNorthernCardinalSFS071122.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1820" data-original-width="2426" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7gA4uwFCLnr_LB7ynBFXWhVNTDAykgq8_KPEZeoVnnYuPYiQRAKblBpboPnYiyQXZ-c2r1J2qOPRW75jA0JCRQYxe_VwFbZnM26dNUeeFUi2GJEbxUd1ssd0yQ0V7ggso7YtSdC41WITKcIWNSZ6l94qgsx4E2Q2Okzk3L94ZvZCT_Ba61lpSUPQOfg/s320/juvenileNorthernCardinalSFS071122.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Young Cardinal on Tomato Cage. Field Sketch with Sumi Brush Pen. Copyright 2022 by Ken Januski.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><br /> <p></p>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-59126001931604671292022-09-05T15:59:00.002-04:002022-09-05T15:59:24.639-04:00Ambition in Art<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilgbHL2CKcGONKhI95FjQJZD_U5b8oVre_M9Xa0mCAanklIPByIaYxp5_SZMXot7t-gjQUU0M7JDTZng3w8oU5-xeDAn7rBwdL44Rfm_8sp6nOLgu8yNbLArIuCAdEmtzfgI59XbCTUhStymC9fx4u3Vdqc0V8FIp5YNrrCvVrIzP0fSHdEr9Qwu4xJg/s2183/BrantBBPLTorinokoED082222.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1644" data-original-width="2183" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilgbHL2CKcGONKhI95FjQJZD_U5b8oVre_M9Xa0mCAanklIPByIaYxp5_SZMXot7t-gjQUU0M7JDTZng3w8oU5-xeDAn7rBwdL44Rfm_8sp6nOLgu8yNbLArIuCAdEmtzfgI59XbCTUhStymC9fx4u3Vdqc0V8FIp5YNrrCvVrIzP0fSHdEr9Qwu4xJg/s320/BrantBBPLTorinokoED082222.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brant and Black-bellied Plover on Nummy Island. Moku hanga print by Ken Januski, Copyright 2022.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />One of the hazards of writing anything online is that eventually someone will read it. Of course the purpose of a blog, much more than social media I'd say, is to have people read it, not just like it but read it. The problem, at least if you're a person somewhat like me, and have some sense of conscientiousness, is that I may find that I disagree with what I've written, sometimes almost immediately after writing it.<p></p>
<div>What got me started on this was mentioning "ambition" in my last post. I mean exactly what I said. I missed the ambitiousness of much of my abstract work once I switched to more naturalist work. I also missed it in printmaking, especially moku hanga, at least my own moku hanga. One of the rewards of the International Moku Hanga Conference was seeing ambitious work by others. The same could also be said for the work at the annual exhibitions of the Society of Wildlife Artists, in which I've often been fortunate enough to exhibit. Both have examples of ambitious art.</div><div><br /></div><div>So what's the problem? Well the problem is that there is a lot of art that I like and admire that is not particularly ambitious. And there's also the problem, which I'll spare you showing visual examples of from my own work, where ambition just leads to constipation. It can become very stilted!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkr_wZ9T_mtvYjnmxIYGK6ZCEGqIXIE997T-mT1cgMzRiTpHBBLHVulOSZs-0gVcPc8vZE2zP7N63BPRyzqAOlCIH5yAxKvbvUw8aHeIbs2nmAVRqV95kYe-_9k_PpZULpuSZl4qHCyU3VEE_HIocuCQ1MLw311ZgryN7bbeQ7-wn2_tJzCJHbBqGmpA/s1580/leapingCottontailMemorySketch090122.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="993" data-original-width="1580" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkr_wZ9T_mtvYjnmxIYGK6ZCEGqIXIE997T-mT1cgMzRiTpHBBLHVulOSZs-0gVcPc8vZE2zP7N63BPRyzqAOlCIH5yAxKvbvUw8aHeIbs2nmAVRqV95kYe-_9k_PpZULpuSZl4qHCyU3VEE_HIocuCQ1MLw311ZgryN7bbeQ7-wn2_tJzCJHbBqGmpA/s320/leapingCottontailMemorySketch090122.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leaping Eastern Cottontail at SCEE. Sumi brush pen and water brush painting from memory by Ken Januski. Copyright 2022.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div>
The very quickly done(3-5 minutes) drawing from memory above is very exciting to me. It tries to capture, and does I think at least to me, the living leaping rabbit in front of me. I saw this rabbit at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education last week where it was here and gone in less than 30 seconds. But is this drawingt ambitious as the term is usually used in art? Probably not. But what could be more ambitious than trying to get a feel for the actual encounter with an animal, or a person for that matter? But I didn't consider it ambitious when I did it. It was just something that I wanted to do. And I think that there is a lot of similar art, though probably much more 'realistic' than mine, which couldn't care less about ambition but just wants to capture something of what it sees, and perhaps feels.<div><br /></div><div>On the other hand I think that there is a large audience for art that mainly values the subject, in my case animals most of the time, but has little or no reaction to how it is portrayed except perhaps by a photographic yardstick. "OMG I thought it was a photo!!" Though this is an honest expression of appreciation most times, or so I'd guess since I've never used it myself, it probably is not exactly welcome to the ears of the artist, unless he or she is trying to imitate a photo.</div><div><br /></div><div>Many artists, and I'm sure also musicians, actors, and also craftsmen of whatever sort, can get bored with the language/tools they've been given to. work with. Almost as soon as they put pen to paper, chisel to stone, tomato sauce in pan, etc., etc. they fear that they're creating a cliche. I'm sure this doesn't affect all artists and craftsmen but I think it does affect a lot. Those artists want to refresh their art. What they do is first disliked my most, even their peers, eventually accepted by their peers, then by the general public, then appears on shopping bags and in commercials, where it is not even truly seen or heard anymore and some new artist will try once again to freshen the medium he uses. This is what I would call the good side of ambition in art. It really is a passion to express something that the language of the art currently doesn't seem to be able to say. (As and aside I most recently read about this in an explanation of Charlie Parker and his music. He wanted to play what he heard in his head but wasn't being played by anyone else). That is ambition born of passion.</div><div><br /></div><div>There's also ambition I'm afraid born of the academy, and every age has its academy, though it may not know what it is. The Impressionists were the enfant terribles of their day, reacting against salon painters. But every age has an academy and many artists are ambitious within the constraints and goals, spoken or unspoken, of it. This to me is a bad type of ambition because it really is just art that tries to mimic other 'successful' art of its time. I'm sure most artists can think of examples of artists they know, sometimes successful ones, who seem more to be copying more or less someone who is currently successful, rather than developing their own artistic voice.</div><div><br /></div><div>I haven't been to art school in ages so who knows what is taught today. But I wouldn't be completely surprised to hear at least some teachers suggesting that artists develop their own voice. This is something I'm pretty sympathetic to but I'm not sure every artist will fare well with that goal. "Uh, oh, is this really me? Am I copying someone else? Is it slightly derivative? Etc., etc." I did spend some years in graduate school where such questions seem to turn artists into deer in headlights, sometimes including myself. I don't want to go to far afield but I would say that this can be another example of ambition in art being bad for some artists.</div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps some artists should just do what they love and go from there. The Society of Wildlife Artists mentions something about 'encouraging appreciation and delight in the natural world' on their web site. I think this means to highlight nature rather than art, though I could be wrong. And in some ways I think I must be because much of the art shown there is delightful, and that delight I think is created by a collaboration between artist and nature. The artist has to notice what is delightful AND find a way of expressing that. This is another form of ambition in art, but one like ones I mentioned earlier that stems from passion.</div><div><br /></div><div>And on that SWLA note I should add that I'm quite happy to have had two of my works chosen for the annual show in London in mid-October. My new moku hanga of the Brant and Black-bellied Plover at top of this post is one of the works. The other is my next to last moku hanga: Bobolink at Dixon Meadow shown below. I was tempted to submit my more recent Nashville Warbler on Bean Trellis in Winter, which I still really, really like! But it doesn't seem to have been particularly popular and the costs involved with shipping and couriers have made me limit my entries to just two.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8tzWaR0VGMRAJMVFdomU4vNlIdsV5kD9vhawKdwUmxONlKVoHWMPQL3QZ2NH1e52eRe0s4w1fO8umJizzqccChJRTowq1Dx-NLSp7kDte2mxKJ_ciYk296_K8kZWnVZA8Nt2_G0MQXpaGDeKPyA-HpFacMkHBfAjZBpDf2xc4xbZbP569qS_PM6SYow/s3108/SWLABobolinkEntry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2421" data-original-width="3108" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8tzWaR0VGMRAJMVFdomU4vNlIdsV5kD9vhawKdwUmxONlKVoHWMPQL3QZ2NH1e52eRe0s4w1fO8umJizzqccChJRTowq1Dx-NLSp7kDte2mxKJ_ciYk296_K8kZWnVZA8Nt2_G0MQXpaGDeKPyA-HpFacMkHBfAjZBpDf2xc4xbZbP569qS_PM6SYow/s320/SWLABobolinkEntry.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bobolink At Dixon Meadow Preserver. Moku hanga by Ken Januski, copyright 2021.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-8830926578947265612022-06-13T16:20:00.002-04:002022-06-13T16:24:50.148-04:00Two (Moku Hanga) for 2022<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfbNAIFvDW-4iwOy1rEz2lacN_Iwn6qqw_1aT2RMtCUhjzm68Ar7PXNKnfS9_BQIOkTeLXUVwxFQLwjKGXh_AJt2_7lYz1YowYt-yJiLdQeNyj7n6BNG4_U_DZv4tbHXYXR473PXvjWFqDqFPV4l_krt4gfxTvWC9esRP1Rn196qvHWcCiwM5CZu5OvA/s2048/nawaMKTripod061222.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1390" data-original-width="2048" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfbNAIFvDW-4iwOy1rEz2lacN_Iwn6qqw_1aT2RMtCUhjzm68Ar7PXNKnfS9_BQIOkTeLXUVwxFQLwjKGXh_AJt2_7lYz1YowYt-yJiLdQeNyj7n6BNG4_U_DZv4tbHXYXR473PXvjWFqDqFPV4l_krt4gfxTvWC9esRP1Rn196qvHWcCiwM5CZu5OvA/s320/nawaMKTripod061222.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Original Moku Hanga of Nashville Warbler on Bean Trellis in Winter. Copyright 2022 by Ken Januski</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO_gAQArvJD-OG6BHBHC4FucM21wkskMmfsV2yuojrQMJLrGQDZKVehEvp0rw8t52fBykoHEo0_uGW9B00_PqaDmasa10KTeoii1uBNtUpVOSPMhgId6hE86kSGvD43J6OdDENiSsM59lCqE7vLiOa1Z1tQ_IRvFST6rVoZ8VLsa_PWWxHuHxL7SIC1A/s2048/boboMKTripod061222.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1626" data-original-width="2048" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO_gAQArvJD-OG6BHBHC4FucM21wkskMmfsV2yuojrQMJLrGQDZKVehEvp0rw8t52fBykoHEo0_uGW9B00_PqaDmasa10KTeoii1uBNtUpVOSPMhgId6hE86kSGvD43J6OdDENiSsM59lCqE7vLiOa1Z1tQ_IRvFST6rVoZ8VLsa_PWWxHuHxL7SIC1A/s320/boboMKTripod061222.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Original Moku Hanga of Bobolink at Dixon Meadow. Copyright 2022 by Ken Januski.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>
I've finally finished my second Moku Hanga of 2022, this one a revisit of my first one ever: Nashville Warbler on Bean Trellis in Winter. I don't believe I ever showed the final version of the Bobolink at Dixon Meadow so I'm showing it as well.
<div><br /></div><div>It's not surprising that I did another version of the Nashville Warbler. Being my first moku hanga ever and being done with exactly no training in the art/skill/process it came into being more through will power, trust in my artistic abilities regardless of medium as well as sheer terror at all that was going wrong as I proceeded trying to print an edition!! And yet I still liked it, and it seems some other people did as well. But there was absolutely no consistency from print to print so I removed it from sale.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the five plus years since I made the first version I've learned a lot. As I think I wrote previously about the International Moku Hanga Conference last December I learned a lot from presentations there, but I also had my ambitions raised. As with wildlife art when I first ran into The Society of Wildlife Artists I had to run into some accomplished artists in the field to see all that was possible and also I'd say to translate the ambitions I used to have in my abstract work into wildlife art, except here it was to moku hanga. One of the surprising things about the conference and other smaller online meetings that were an outgrowth of it was the discovery of what a great variety of accomplished and contemporary moku hanga there is out there in the world.</div><div><br /></div><div>All of that I think informed these prints, as well as my continued desire to portray the natural world, something for which I don't make the slightest apology. If you're not smart enough to see that it is just as valid as any other 'subject' that is your blindness, not my anachronistic romanticism about nature. I think just about anything can be the subject of art, including wildlife.</div><div><br /></div><div>But that is a bit of tangent. I really don't have a lot to say about these prints except to say that in the newest one I did a lot of experimenting on the background. I wanted it to be vibrant but I also wanted it to evoke in some way the very inhospitable weather we had when the Nashville Warbler was in our yard many winters ago. In that experimentation I ended up varying what I printed even in the final edition. So these prints will be called e/v for Edition Varie. But I also found that I was getting tired of tossing prints from the edition, often each of which might have a few hours devoted to it, because of small blemishes.</div><div><br /></div><div>I can understand the tradition of only choosing prints that are identical, that are without blemish of any sort, etc., etc. If I'd trained as a printmaker perhaps I'd believe in it as well. But it seems to be that there is a tyranny there, that values the skill of the printer over the artistic quality of the artist, who sometimes is the printer as well, especially in most modern moku hanga.</div><div><br /></div><div>In fact almost everything is done by hand, by one person in modern moku hanga. I'm just guessing but with five blocks on my new print, multiple printings of some of the blocks and multiple colors as well on some that this leads at least to 10 impressions for each print, 10 times that something can go wrong, often just the slightest thing. I have been relatively strict in culling out prints in the past that have had very minor blemishes. But I'm getting more and more reluctant to do so given the work involved. So when I finally number the edition of the Nashville Warbler I may include more prints that I normally would. I think that this is a step in the right direction.</div><div><br /></div><div>Otherwise I think printing can just become too inhibiting and just not worthwhile from an economic perspective as well as psychological perspective. Rules should not stamp the joy out of it. This I'm sure will rankle at least some print collectors. But my feeling toward them would probably be the same as it is to those art collectors who won't accept any thing out of order in the feather details of birds. Those demands are just too inhibiting I think for the serious artist to bother with.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-436968081373926472022-04-28T17:25:00.000-04:002022-04-28T17:25:02.043-04:00Continuity of Medium or Continuity of Subject<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVY0q11UfzNgVEWlvvLycHrOglHusOhboRMwZi6tNlwkqPcfubRt2_HE1L-PQVtyMvypC6pTUzjvyRJ8CvFaz3qlNE6PZx2cjM3XlIo9aBrSKsZkonfaIi5vbng7eWmnFzafWhXKzpbRLps2E9bk1CBL70KiOnywrUMikC5OBRgLuGdEE7Cl4bvIMszw/s2056/boblinkMokuHangaCropped.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1542" data-original-width="2056" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVY0q11UfzNgVEWlvvLycHrOglHusOhboRMwZi6tNlwkqPcfubRt2_HE1L-PQVtyMvypC6pTUzjvyRJ8CvFaz3qlNE6PZx2cjM3XlIo9aBrSKsZkonfaIi5vbng7eWmnFzafWhXKzpbRLps2E9bk1CBL70KiOnywrUMikC5OBRgLuGdEE7Cl4bvIMszw/s320/boblinkMokuHangaCropped.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bobolink at Dixon Meadow Preserve. Moku Hanga by Ken Januski. Copyright 2022.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Though I've been finished with the moku hanga above of Bobolink at Dixon Meadow above for quite a while and am almost finished with a new one, Nashville Warbler on Bean Trellis in Winter, proofs of which are below, I haven't written about them or shown them here.</p><p>There's a simple reason: I didn't know what to say. Given my occasional loquacity that might be hard for some to believe. I suppose it might also be related to not wanting to repeat myself. In any case I've been happy with my recent moku hanga prints but I just haven't known what to say about them. I think that they should speak for themselves.</p><p> </p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisqNcSxtAZky-1ReO2vxdkjmWEQcm986ILe7XfvNqh8Jo0qUqVV_bPoNn7gQdA7T-7aqXXhJD_uetbNavcgsIAn3PQM4pYsZJ57FnUM_YD0XJfTtSjRCRv43YbEToV3y7rJjZu5HCCVfrq7GzLHMNCilxc6LZFfI-RrL518k59jFAzSP_68BktJfFP_A/s4032/NawaMasaDosaProofsIMG_0149.HEIC" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisqNcSxtAZky-1ReO2vxdkjmWEQcm986ILe7XfvNqh8Jo0qUqVV_bPoNn7gQdA7T-7aqXXhJD_uetbNavcgsIAn3PQM4pYsZJ57FnUM_YD0XJfTtSjRCRv43YbEToV3y7rJjZu5HCCVfrq7GzLHMNCilxc6LZFfI-RrL518k59jFAzSP_68BktJfFP_A/s320/NawaMasaDosaProofsIMG_0149.HEIC" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nashville Warbler on Bean Trellis in Winter. Moku Hanga proofs by Ken Januski. Copyright 2022.<br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>At the same time I've also been doing field sketches of birds, almost all of them about 3x5 inches big and none I think taking more than five minutes. It may be that it's trying to find a link between them and my moku hanga that has stymied me. They are such different methods.<div><br /></div><div>Even my prints have shown different methods, some being more concerned with line and carving like these two recent ones, but some if not most also being concerned with design, color, texture, etc. In the Nashville Warbler print I've gotten involved with texture, something that I've previously ignored to a large extent in moku hanga. Oddly one reason I started with moku hanga is that I liked the flat color that could be created with it. Now I no longer, at least temporarily, want that flat color. Who knew?</div><div><br /></div><div>And yet these are all somewhat formal concerns and that in fact unites them in a way. That is not at all true with field sketches. In them I'm trying to capture the likeness of a living being that is right in front of me and may bolt at any minute. That is not formal at all. I still make some formal decisions in the few minutes I spend on these but that is a minor concern. My main concern is capturing the living thing that is right in front of me, not just in terms of shape and markings but probably more in terms of movement and liveliness. I like these sketches to look alive, something that more developed sketches, particularly from photos, often lack. I will take liveliness over detail any day.</div><div><br /></div><div>But for all that is still hard to connect them with my prints, though often my prints are based on them.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwqI6oBv0kF_xYEQGrVSJrHXJ7dmYTRzCpPlygaZ4M2RkwwmOaLdWPasvtu6W2DrnKLGwgcAH12CcUxG0JbajCHx3hrL8MXMgo24wiYAG2Ap6sdPcnU21tlwPqv9-wQHeyvuo-oxRyBGTgLSkezF3zy9FyP2_Inr5zihLevjzs-FLds18xeFEmyvBYoQ/s2048/blueJayAtWissFS042122.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1219" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwqI6oBv0kF_xYEQGrVSJrHXJ7dmYTRzCpPlygaZ4M2RkwwmOaLdWPasvtu6W2DrnKLGwgcAH12CcUxG0JbajCHx3hrL8MXMgo24wiYAG2Ap6sdPcnU21tlwPqv9-wQHeyvuo-oxRyBGTgLSkezF3zy9FyP2_Inr5zihLevjzs-FLds18xeFEmyvBYoQ/s320/blueJayAtWissFS042122.jpg" width="190" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sumi brush pen field sketch of Blue Jay by Ken Januski. Copyright 2022.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1wrz9o8ce-tsyyfsq-GnwfEuI6ZvsjnMM2RfQGIihK0IH49yE2Pg1653EiTLwm_wmp-bkfDnzlQxoFjgARkRsGa1_UjBZA69d74h_a-ZAOZfMwVjjyZVdrCNcWaqEciNoBSfISH4ydEWaS9imQA7uBGFptRIGvf4yF9D2onTINqIRBDCWCyEYLawv8g/s3075/easternPhoebeSCEESumiFS040422.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3075" data-original-width="1973" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1wrz9o8ce-tsyyfsq-GnwfEuI6ZvsjnMM2RfQGIihK0IH49yE2Pg1653EiTLwm_wmp-bkfDnzlQxoFjgARkRsGa1_UjBZA69d74h_a-ZAOZfMwVjjyZVdrCNcWaqEciNoBSfISH4ydEWaS9imQA7uBGFptRIGvf4yF9D2onTINqIRBDCWCyEYLawv8g/s320/easternPhoebeSCEESumiFS040422.jpg" width="205" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sumi brush pen field sketch of Eastern Phoebe by Ken Januski. Copyright 2022</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZAO65IIpkDWfBucVfdA_JjxvBjO6lvQsqXA4F7kj03zH1pZOHqA1S334O-8cLgBt-LxIKFy3zQKP1MyexlyXk357lsIl_0dcnJAEdAM0wNVX-aN4N1XGiWYXxGQkyrD6GVNSLAoBZXA0p5lhXjdTYXlEJ7Uwi_0N0yl7X4HOBZnVdtPnTjSNfRYZycA/s1696/northernCardinalOutsideWindowFS040622.heic" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1696" data-original-width="1058" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZAO65IIpkDWfBucVfdA_JjxvBjO6lvQsqXA4F7kj03zH1pZOHqA1S334O-8cLgBt-LxIKFy3zQKP1MyexlyXk357lsIl_0dcnJAEdAM0wNVX-aN4N1XGiWYXxGQkyrD6GVNSLAoBZXA0p5lhXjdTYXlEJ7Uwi_0N0yl7X4HOBZnVdtPnTjSNfRYZycA/s320/northernCardinalOutsideWindowFS040622.heic" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sumi brush pen field sketch of female Northern Cardinal that appeared outside my studio window.Copy right 2022 by Ken Januski.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU4i9SpwkiVN3TfkIMcweyhobeSjZwoea8f5KNT0lBqyO0e70eeoXbbYoHNlJjY4mOFKKIxZ2d86ciCGV1dOvkZvM572AxojBWhCoBEeFOCvD-mZOEFax6ceYTBKyiwatrTg-RnBZQXNt9vvdr2LnMeLowv8vVytFCYl13qNdvxAKe5P2kVb9rL_9fog/s3314/palmWarblerHoustonMFS042222.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2031" data-original-width="3314" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU4i9SpwkiVN3TfkIMcweyhobeSjZwoea8f5KNT0lBqyO0e70eeoXbbYoHNlJjY4mOFKKIxZ2d86ciCGV1dOvkZvM572AxojBWhCoBEeFOCvD-mZOEFax6ceYTBKyiwatrTg-RnBZQXNt9vvdr2LnMeLowv8vVytFCYl13qNdvxAKe5P2kVb9rL_9fog/s320/palmWarblerHoustonMFS042222.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sumi brush pen field sketch of Palm Warbler, the first seen this year. Copyright 2022 by Ken Januski.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZXgRi17OHwwSiCa_eRBaJXYOBSaj7dIEHrVkXb6jKWqIOra3XZTx42Bb1wBB88SzBKO7o_a08lIoZhn-cpPOyyqB6v9YYXPMxk1O-eqm_8lzgujvyWiipUjhp0CMNA9KT3ESW3gq2D6ajIde3mO4UmOZEvEvVf5B7GQbif30F4ronbolKzfUH8wXd_A/s1157/tuftedTitmouseWissFS041522-0135.heic" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="906" data-original-width="1157" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZXgRi17OHwwSiCa_eRBaJXYOBSaj7dIEHrVkXb6jKWqIOra3XZTx42Bb1wBB88SzBKO7o_a08lIoZhn-cpPOyyqB6v9YYXPMxk1O-eqm_8lzgujvyWiipUjhp0CMNA9KT3ESW3gq2D6ajIde3mO4UmOZEvEvVf5B7GQbif30F4ronbolKzfUH8wXd_A/s320/tuftedTitmouseWissFS041522-0135.heic" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sumi brush pen field sketches of Tufted Titmouse by Ken Januski. Copyright 2022.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7zUndnpakAIlfv24uifdV3d1FRj7m4NQriz2xQw-yoduZIlnSXvOilbdee1OmXtHViwNdYiwxQTXLMXnOSlODUjv2V2B9_d7bUYqTaj7jqe2cBnfhPzbuke0pNSVxPXIh0p5M6J9ybWRkReAoe6zDBXyF3zy_WrMp6UIh_oE4xuNq0os8Y3Xekih-AA/s2069/yellowsrumoedWarblerHoustonSumiFS042822IMG_0151.heic" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2069" data-original-width="1305" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7zUndnpakAIlfv24uifdV3d1FRj7m4NQriz2xQw-yoduZIlnSXvOilbdee1OmXtHViwNdYiwxQTXLMXnOSlODUjv2V2B9_d7bUYqTaj7jqe2cBnfhPzbuke0pNSVxPXIh0p5M6J9ybWRkReAoe6zDBXyF3zy_WrMp6UIh_oE4xuNq0os8Y3Xekih-AA/s320/yellowsrumoedWarblerHoustonSumiFS042822IMG_0151.heic" width="202" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sumi brush pen field sketch of Yellow-rumped Warbler seen today at Houston Meadow. Copyright 2022 by Ken Januski.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Because I often switch media, or often styles within the same medium, I may look a bit flighty or at least not committed to a particular medium, such as moku hanga. I have wondered about this. And I've decided that my commitment is to a subject, the natural world in particular birds.</div><div><br /></div><div>During my formal artistic education the last thing I wanted was subject matter. I could be pretty ruthless in making sure that there was none, not even any vague reference to something from the physical world. But over time I decided that this was just silly. You have just as much artistic freedom with a subject as without one, and all in all I think subject matter both makes the art more interesting and more rewarding.</div><div><br /></div><div>So my art may lack much continuity of medium over the last 10-15 years. But it has a very strong continuity of subject and I'm perfectly happy with that.</div>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-6793403851397791132022-02-07T14:36:00.004-05:002022-02-12T16:51:45.504-05:00Craft, Technique, Mokuhanga<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjG-yMExjh-H598pvfd4DO7PnhBA2GcE9W-04HX4zcRLdwQP973VMiG7CS5clOfDchLMz9GHDspo44cbzvjRPpApDRLtekLcTTIIuz7Nt64msQH3GZex2UE4WNVA5EZI9WY5_58fGJuT84JUF9pBVAhjsA6_cW4avrDPTuElk26S2ZuihikEiwgpOA59w=s3834" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2196" data-original-width="3834" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjG-yMExjh-H598pvfd4DO7PnhBA2GcE9W-04HX4zcRLdwQP973VMiG7CS5clOfDchLMz9GHDspo44cbzvjRPpApDRLtekLcTTIIuz7Nt64msQH3GZex2UE4WNVA5EZI9WY5_58fGJuT84JUF9pBVAhjsA6_cW4avrDPTuElk26S2ZuihikEiwgpOA59w=s320" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My carving tools for moku hanga, including a newly sharped aisuki chisel. Along with baren that has just been newly wrapped in bamboo sheath. The bamboo was softened before wrapping using the stone at bottom right.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZyffCflSxtCYkeJS4eVEPoqQOXjN6pviCdEaj3UuHv9VgEH6TeLbje7C-vuEPwrz9Wv7ECb8-JgLucWkNC51ZiGVS6cExTD1Aw7fbPjRz54wC8KM_EEWB9OvmZqLuTsbdmQ9WzKfGhdWO5S_LMg09Z2r3HtXwJvfsDPLAuTlsZ8VG1mDVFnTziCeDIg=s4032" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZyffCflSxtCYkeJS4eVEPoqQOXjN6pviCdEaj3UuHv9VgEH6TeLbje7C-vuEPwrz9Wv7ECb8-JgLucWkNC51ZiGVS6cExTD1Aw7fbPjRz54wC8KM_EEWB9OvmZqLuTsbdmQ9WzKfGhdWO5S_LMg09Z2r3HtXwJvfsDPLAuTlsZ8VG1mDVFnTziCeDIg=s320" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Most of the proofs I made as I developed the moku hanga of the Bobolink at Dixon Meadow Preserve. I will start printing edition today or tomorrow.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I had a great revelation today. After thinking about a new blog post that would talk about the 4th International Mokuhanga Conference as well as the craft and technique that is part of mokuhanga I kept coming up with this big caveat: I generally don't like technique in my work or anyone's.</p><p>The revelation, at least to me if not necessarily the rest of the world, is that craft and technique are different! Though I've never really cared about technique and did not have an artistic education that stressed it I nonetheless have always been appreciative of tools, of any sort, and learning how to appreciate them and use them as they were made to be used. There is a great sense of both accomplishment and also something akin to moral grounding in appreciating a good tool and learning how to use it for its intended purpose. Good tools are a gift to humanity, just like art and nature.</p><p>Today I finally realized that craft is learning how to use the tools of your craft. In mokuhanga in particular it means that you learn, slowly, how to use the various carving tools, and also how to sharpen them, learning how they differ from most western-style tools. I have no problem at all with this type of craftsmanship. It's necessary first off. You can't do much carving if you don't have sharp tools and know how to use them. But it also entails I think an appreciation for the maker of the tools, especially all the hand tools that are used in mokuhanga, as well as for their history. Back when I dabbled, and I do mean dabbled, in fine carpentry, I loved buying using chisels and planes from the 1800s or earlier(always at a very cheap price I should add). I had gotten tired of power tools, which probably are necessary if you need to work quickly, but otherwise are to me just a pain. There is something much more rewarding, though with a learning curve, in hand tools, like chisels and planes. But in addition I just got a real kick out of using a 19th century plane once used by someone in France, or a chisel used in England or early America, etc., etc. You are holding a piece of history and also continuing it. </p><p>Craft also means I forgot to mention learning about how barens work, how the wood you carve works, in particular how Japanese paper works. The recovered baren at top would look quite amateurish if I turned it over so you could see how the bamboo ends are tied off among other things. But it's something I've been dreading doing for quite a while and yet I knew that you really have to learn how to do it. Your bamboo cover will eventually develop problems and they will damage the much more expensive coil that is beneath the bamboo cover. This is my second recovering. The first was adequate but the bamboo had cracked just outside the surface of the baren. I knew it was only a matter of time before it migrated onto the surface and would cause me to stop printing and replace it. Since I was about to start printing the edition of the bobolink I decided it was best to do my second recovering before I started. It has been more than adequate and I'm finally experiencing what others have talked about, the feeling of great sensitivity in the baren. So these are just some aspects, at least to me, of craft in mokuhanga. I guess you could say that learning how to print a good bokashi(shading) or many other types of. surfaces is also a craft. And I think that is true. Bokashi is also a tool in your toolbox, though it was one that for a long time I really couldn't see myself using. But I think this may be where the confusion comes. Having the ability to print a good bokashi is having the craft of bokashi. But often it seems that it. is used more to show that you can do it rather than because the print calls for it. Then it becomes technique.</p><p>Technique. as distinguished from craft, seems often to just mean facility. Facility is of course useful. But there are often times where facile is also soulless. Artists I think know this, but audiences often don't. In any case that is why I've been ambivalent about craft in printmaking and especially moku hanga. Now I realize that I'm not ambivalent. I like and appreciate craft in printmaking and moku hanga. It's technique that has become facile that I don't like. (I should add that when I first started making wildlife art I used a very vigorous compressed charcoal and heavy erasure method of working. I'd used it for years in my abstract work and I was sure that my facility in its use would cover my very significant ignorance of the structure of birds. It worked I think but it was a dead end. So I forgot about and instead spent years going back to the remedial work of figuring out how birds are put together. But I did abandon ship on my facility with charcoal).</p><p>I should add that I think that there is a fair amount of facile technique in printmaking, which perhaps has something to do with my never being totally taken with it. But it's not necessary to printmaking. I don't want to get off on a tangent so I'll just say in summary that much printmaking, though less so moku hanga I think, seems musclebound. The soul of the artist is buried under the avalanche of technique.</p><p>Enough! Now back to Moku Hanga and the 4th International Moku Hanga Conference. I felt both odd and apprehensive about applying for the Sumi-Fusion Exhibition that was part of it. Though I'm now in my sixth year of moku hanga printing I've also done painting and sketching during that time. I've certainly not been fully involved in it. And I've never studied it with anyone. Finally I know that I have mastered neither craft or technique. So in many ways you could say I'm an impostor.</p><p>On the other hand since the first time I tried it I fell in love with it, in spite of the huge number of travails along the way. So I decided to apply for the exhibition and also register and pay my fee for largely but not completely virtual conference. My understanding is that the actual conference was open to anyone living in Japan but due to the pandemic was not open to outside visitors.</p><p>Practically speaking I have to say the organizers did a tremendous job. I have always avoided Zoom but finally was baptized at the conference. It was the only way to participate, or even just to watch presentations and discussions live. For me there were almost no technical problems. I could see almost any demonstration or talk that I wanted to. When you consider that the conference had to be set up so that people in a least 3 major time zones could do so it really seems like an amazing technical feat.</p><p>But technology was not my main concern. I just want to note what an accomplishment it was. My first goal I think, outside of happily having my work accepted to the exhibition, was to learn some craft. I really wanted to know more about sharpening tools, using barens effectively and also recovering them in bamboo, which is often necessary. There were great video demonstrations on these topics that I've watched over and over.</p><p>What I didn't really expect to gain was an appreciation for the wealth of types of contemporary mokuhanga as well as the variety of people from all over the world. This was really a pleasant surprise. And there was something more. Seeing real mokuhanga artists!</p><p>This may seem silly. What do I mean? Even though I made art from an early age I never really thought I could be an artist. As far as I know there were none in the town where I grew up. Even when I went to college and made very regular visits to a major museum in a large US city I didn't connect with artists whose works I saw in the museum. They were from history not real life. It was only when I ended up going to college in the San Francisco area studying studio art that I met real artists who were making a living from their art: real life artists! It seems silly but sometimes you just have to see such things to believe that they are possible. The same was true though to a lesser extent with seeing so many mokuhanga artists and seeing them talk about their work. It just gave me a much greater appreciation of mokuhanga as a living breathing thing.</p><p>Seeing so many people talk about mokuhanga also reinforced some of my own feelings: that it is a natural way to work, using natural materials, largely without the use of toxic chemicals. It's always struck me as very organic and earthbound and that feeling was largely corroborated by many of the artists who gave talks or demonstrations. Though I don't think it was mentioned all that much I do think I heard others say what I've often felt: that you are in total control with mokuhanga. You don't need an expensive, heavy, bulky printing press. Your press is you, your baren and the table in front of you. There is so much control of the process at your fingertips.</p><p>Total control is of course good and bad. When things go wrong you generally can't blame the press or anyone/thing other than yourself. This happened to me just the other day when I went to fine-tune the carving on a woodblock. Thin previously carved lines kept breaking on me. That's most likely because is has been so dry here. But it is something that people learn to work around. You don't have to stop printing while awaiting delivery of a repair part for your press.</p><p>Having seen many Society of Wildlife Artist's Exhibitions online, attended one in person and having shown in many I couldn't help comparing the two though they are different in that one is primarily an exhibition and the other a conference that includes an exhibition(s). What struck me is the variety of subjects in the papers given at the conference: some were quite historical with one considering the effect of new pigments on the quality of ukiyo-e prints, another, if I remember correctly, Tibetan carving in relation to mokuhanga. I would not at all suggest that papers start being given at SWLA but I do have to say that it was a fascinating experience to see so many people connected to mokuhanga in so many different ways. I wish that I had had time to watch all of the presentations, even though most are still online today. I just have not had the time. And of course there was Zoom fatigue.</p><p>But all in all I couldn't have been happier with the conference. There was a tremendous amount to digest and I have to thank everyone involved for making it possible.</p><p>If there's anything I regret it's not being able to visit the sumi ink shop which actual visitors were able to do. I've always loved sumi, well at least since I first used it, and it would have been fascinating to see. Having never been to Japan, and with no immediate plans to do so, I do have to say nonetheless that it has become much more of an interesting place to visit. I started reading a history of Japanese art right around the time the conference started. That also has piqued my interest, in particular in architecture, something that Nara which hosted the conference seems to have plenty of. Well perhaps next time!</p><p>Finally, back at the very top, are some pictorial examples of craft in mokuhanga. The first photo shows my carving tools, including a newly sharpened aisuki chisel and a newly wrapped baren. This one worked much better, though it is still amateurish, because I used the stone at bottom right to soften the bamboo before covering. The second photo shows many of the proofs of my current mokuhanga. I hope to start printing today or tomorrow.</p>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-86305726117516627712021-11-16T14:52:00.002-05:002021-11-16T14:52:27.177-05:00Making Good Progress, or Not, with Moku Hanga<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--Cz42UukNhE/YZP9ilViwJI/AAAAAAAAIMM/wp5AUtFA0tgLbOniA9yxq16f2nq0ObcQACNcBGAsYHQ/s1337/rckiMKNishiEDPhoto1820735.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1337" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--Cz42UukNhE/YZP9ilViwJI/AAAAAAAAIMM/wp5AUtFA0tgLbOniA9yxq16f2nq0ObcQACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/rckiMKNishiEDPhoto1820735.jpg" width="239" /></a>
</td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Original moku hanga of 'Ruby-crowned Kinglet on Honeysuckle - Winter 2021'. 5.75 x 8 inches on Nishinouchi paper. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>I'm now approaching my 5th year of moku hanga, though since I've done a fair amount of painting during that time, it's really not a full five years. I started off with just about the cheapest baren you could buy, eventually bought and used a plastic baren designed by Kurosaki and have replaced the face numerous times. But I always have a nagging unhappiness with some part of each print and normally it seems to be due to uneven paint coverage, though there are of course always just the plain old mistakes of one sort or another that are always there.</p><p>In any case, and particularly after watching a video of Hideki Goto, master baren maker, from the 2107 International Moku Hanga Conference, I decided it was time to buy a better baren. Eventually I bought a murasaki baren from <a href="https://www.imcclains.com/" target="_blank">McClain's Printmaking Supplies</a>. I decided that a simple design was probably the best way to test it. I also decided to use a small 5.75x8 inch Shina block since it was just a test.</p><p>That made some sense, until I saw all my carved lines crumble in front of me as I tried to carve them. It reminded me of my first first Chinese brush paintings from many years ago. The ink on the brush seemed to almost leap from the brush to the paper where it created a huge blob, before the brush even touched the paper. Here the somewhat thin line seemed to break before I'd touched the carving knife to the wood. It's possible that the wood had dried out a bit and that was the problem, but mainly I think it was that I was trying to cut pretty thin lines for the size of the wood.</p><p>So I had to give up on that block and re-carve the block that included all of the lines. I spent more time testing the wood and my carving abilities than I did testing the new baren. And I'm sure I would have spent even more time on the carving if I hadn't watched another demo from the 2017 International Moku Conference, this one by master carver Shoichi Kitamura. Because he spoke in Japanese and was then translated I couldn't follow everything. But at one point he cut a line about a quarter inch from the fine lines he planned to carve. I'd always understood that this line was cut AFTER the real carving. He said that this relieved the pressure on the wood as he carved. And that seemed to be the case. By using that method my re-carving had none of the broken lines of my first line block!</p><p>As anyone who's read this blog for a while probably knows I'm not fond of bad use of the English language. Going forward(argh!!!) I try not to use redundancies, verbal barnacle-like accretions that clarify nothing and just weigh down sentences, etc. So when I use 'good progress' in the title to this post I'm joking. What other kind of progress is there? If it's bad it must be regression not progression. But the title also explains my feelings about moku hanga. Sometimes I think I'm making progress and other times I'm not so sure.</p><p>I've also been listening, thanks to McClain's Printmaking Supplies mentioning it in a recent newsletter, to <a href="https://theunfinishedprint.libsyn.com/" target="_blank">The Unfinished Print</a>, a series of podcasts with interviews of contemporary moku hanga printmakers. I think I've listened to four episodes now. And one of the things that most struck me is that, wonder of wonders, I'm not the only person who finds the medium difficult!!! But also I'm not the only one who can't resist continuing with it.</p><p>Finally, after I'd finished re-carving the line block, I was able to concentrate more on color and using the murasaki baren to get better paint coverage. In this I'm very happy. It has worked quite well, at least by my standards. Some of the uneven paint coverage that remains is due less to the new baren than it is to the fact that I'm using a floating kento. And I'm using a floating kento, rather than a kento carved into each block, because my blocks are so small that they really don't allow room to cut a kento.</p><p>That was mistake number two in my 'simple' test. Things are never all that simple when you use a floating kento! In any case the few areas of troublesome paint were normally along the bottom edge of the floating kento where I really couldn't bring the baren as far down as I needed to. As they say though I'm now extraordinarily deep in the weeds so I won't pursue this. Suffice it to say that other than this little problem the new baren worked extraordinarily well and I'm happy that I purchased it.</p><p>In art it's often true that just about the hardest thing to do well is something 'simple.' I think I re-learned that lesson here. I thought it would be a simple little moku hanga that would allow me to test the new baren. It was anything but simple! Still I am happy with the results.</p><p>It does however differ quite a bit from my print that will be in the Sumi-Fuison Exhibit at the <a href="https://2021.mokuhanga.org/schedule/exhibition-artwork/" target="_blank">2021 International Moku Hanga Conference.</a></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--nyIldc-kH8/YZQI9N0uN7I/AAAAAAAAIMc/EcSGDPlnJjw9O_h_tRpHjhacd0pOuNoLwCNcBGAsYHQ/s1401/gckiMKNishinouchiScan081821.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1401" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--nyIldc-kH8/YZQI9N0uN7I/AAAAAAAAIMc/EcSGDPlnJjw9O_h_tRpHjhacd0pOuNoLwCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/gckiMKNishinouchiScan081821.jpg" width="228" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'A Frenzy of Golden-Crowned Kinglets'. Original moku hanga by Ken Januski, copyright 2020.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Given the complexity of this print it seems like a huge step backwards to do something as simple as the new Ruby-crowned Kinglet print. In many ways I think that is true. But I felt like I needed to get more control of my paint application and this seemed the simplest way to try it! Though of course it wasn't anywhere as near as simple as I'd expected.</p><p>I'd encourage everyone to look at the online version of Sumi-Fusion at the link above. It reminds me of just how varied and rich contemporary moku hanga is. I'm honored, and still a bit shocked, to have one of my prints chosen for inclusion in this exhibition!!!</p>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-6749308855849669772021-10-14T08:24:00.001-04:002021-10-14T08:25:16.011-04:00Art Is A Favor That Is Given To You<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8Yb4mdPsvFs/YWge6E44AJI/AAAAAAAAILw/GH-2M-bZOf8hb1gInT67pFPYN8EDofWpgCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/whimbrelAt2MileLandingTorinokoLight1730997.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1484" data-original-width="2048" height="232" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8Yb4mdPsvFs/YWge6E44AJI/AAAAAAAAILw/GH-2M-bZOf8hb1gInT67pFPYN8EDofWpgCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/whimbrelAt2MileLandingTorinokoLight1730997.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Whimbrels at 2-Mile Landing. Moku Hanga by Ken Januski, copyright 2021.<br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Every time I'm in an exhibition I try to advertise the exhibition, just as I'd guess most artists do, unless they are so well known that they don't need to. But it is tiresome. After all I think my art and the art in the exhibitions I'm in stand on their own. I shouldn't have to beg people to take a look at it.<p></p><p>I was thinking about that this morning in relation to <a href="https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/natural-eye-2021" target="_blank">The Natural Eye</a> whose official opening is today. If you actually spend a bit of time looking at this exhibition, especially if you have the chance to see it in person, you will realize I think how lucky you are to have seen it. And though I've only seen it online the exuberance comes through. It is both accomplished art and a celebration of nature.</p><p>There are many people I'm happy to say that want to celebrate nature. But the attempts don't always come off. It is not easy I don't believe. Can you make art that is as exuberant as nature itself? I think that it is possible and I think you'll find much of it in this exhibit.</p><p>As I said at the top: art is a favor that is given to you, just like nature, if you have the good sense to give it a chance.</p>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-40650633391671470972021-10-04T16:31:00.002-04:002021-10-06T16:19:59.050-04:00Bouncing Around<p>
</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IkC7RjmA598/YVtU-gY284I/AAAAAAAAIKs/W-le4Q7folkp2xsITIiTzYQmJz7plHFfgCNcBGAsYHQ/s1500/redPhalaropeWissWaterfowlPreserveAC1800017.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1147" data-original-width="1500" height="245" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IkC7RjmA598/YVtU-gY284I/AAAAAAAAIKs/W-le4Q7folkp2xsITIiTzYQmJz7plHFfgCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/redPhalaropeWissWaterfowlPreserveAC1800017.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red Phalarope at Wissahickon Waterfowl Preserve. Acrylic painting by Ken Januski. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
I sometimes confuse myself by switching media and perhaps styles so I wouldn't be surprised if I also confuse others. I can only say that it always makes sense to me when I do so.<div><br /></div><div>In all my years of making art, and thinking about it, and in reading about and enjoying the art of others, both visual and otherwise I've come to the conclusion that good artists always develop their own language. I guess you could also say they develop their own set of tools to help them accomplish whatever it is that they want to accomplish.</div><div><br /></div><div>Sometimes this language probably doesn't seem too different than the language of others though the good artist may have an incredible mastery of that language. But other times artists create their own language, like for instance Beethoven. And they also are often masters of that language.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've always had a fear of cliche in my artmaking, though that has nothing to do with taking on 'cliched' subjects. A good artist can always make a cliched subject come alive. I often think of this in terms of abstraction. I don't want to emulate the more realistic painters of the past in my painting, or in my prints either. So I think about abstracting the subject. But that is much easier said than done. So many ways of abstracting a subject seem cliched to me. I'm not so much talking about the work of others as my own.</div><div><br /></div><div>Almost as soon as I put down a mark I think: OH, what a cliche that is!! This can be enervating. And yet for me it seems the only path to take. So, to make a long story short, I think that so much of my changing media and perhaps styles is just me trying to find a way to portray a subject in a way that doesn't seem cliched.</div><div><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o-2Dw4QdjKw/YVtU-HYEEbI/AAAAAAAAIKo/M9D2txFRyLkV47mniSum9BkJQoGtNAK-ACNcBGAsYHQ/s2000/redKnotsLaughingGullsNishinouchiEDC080921.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1458" data-original-width="2000" height="233" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o-2Dw4QdjKw/YVtU-HYEEbI/AAAAAAAAIKo/M9D2txFRyLkV47mniSum9BkJQoGtNAK-ACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/redKnotsLaughingGullsNishinouchiEDC080921.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red Knots and Laughing Gulls. Moku Hanga by Ken Januski. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<p></p><p>Because printmaking is less spontaneous than painting, especially for someone like me who has spent more years as a painter than a printmaker, I also need a better idea of the structure, or perhaps the image, of a print before I start working on it. I can't just put back all the wood I've carved away when I've made a mistake. In painting, at least acrylic or oil painting, I can just paint right over any mistakes I've made. You can't do this in watercolor.</p><p><br /><br />
</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZwJ5VPYfVT4/YVtU-NuqDEI/AAAAAAAAIKg/sWzSHMr2lFgU3bSdU1wi-GC488Igwx5TgCNcBGAsYHQ/s2000/phalaropeAtWWFPDigitalSketch091221.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1499" data-original-width="2000" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZwJ5VPYfVT4/YVtU-NuqDEI/AAAAAAAAIKg/sWzSHMr2lFgU3bSdU1wi-GC488Igwx5TgCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/phalaropeAtWWFPDigitalSketch091221.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Digital sketch of Red Phalarope. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Unless, that is you make a digital sketch, painting, watercolor! I bought an i-pad about 6 months or so ago because I just got sick of the constant slowness of my windows pc. I'm not sure of the cause but I suspect part of it is all that is being done behind the scenes to keep it secure. I could be wrong. Either way I bought an i-pad. And because I've learned that with computers it's often best to buy what you need at the start I also bought an i-pencil. I had no specific plans for using it. The graphic styluses and software programs I used in the distant past drove me nuts.</div><div><br /></div><div>But that was 15-20 years ago. Still I had had the i-pad and i-pencil for 3-4 months and did no sketches during that time. I can't really remember whether it was viewing the video of Hockney's Arrival of Spring at the Royal Academy of Arts <a href="https://makingamark.blogspot.com/2021/09/review-david-hockney-arrival-of-spring.html" target="_blank">https://makingamark.blogspot.com/2021/09/review-david-hockney-arrival-of-spring.html</a> or my deciding that I wanted to do sketches from the photos I'd just taken of a Red Phalarope at Wissahickon Waterfowl Preserve that prompted me to make the digital sketch that is above.</div><div><br /></div><div>I wanted to do the sketches for documentary evidence of the sighting in e-bird and I thought a composite of sketches from my numerous distant photos was really the most revealing way to show what I'd seen, proof that this was a rare Red Phalarope. But I also was quite taken with the Hockney show, and realized, especially after I'd also bought the catalog, how accomplished the show was.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not a fan at all of digital art. In fact I definitely stay away from it. One more example of technology being used because it's there not because it works better than an older technology. So I was surprised at how easy it was for me to see the artistic choices that Hockney was making in these digital paintings.</div><div><br /></div><div>All art really is about making choices, with notes, with words, with marks with colors, or with their digital equivalent. I could see the rich results that Hockney got, not the same results he would get with traditional media, but still rich results. That I think opened me up to the idea of digital painting.</div><div><br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NoX8_E8TaOs/YVtU-HWBz7I/AAAAAAAAIKk/rJErrcGtHGwSVlnK6lnwGzTeCMqhmMrGQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1500/redPhalaropeEtAlDigitalPainting092121.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1124" data-original-width="1500" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NoX8_E8TaOs/YVtU-HWBz7I/AAAAAAAAIKk/rJErrcGtHGwSVlnK6lnwGzTeCMqhmMrGQCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/redPhalaropeEtAlDigitalPainting092121.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red Phalarope, Spotted Sandpiper, Green Heron and Belted Kingfisher at Wissahickon Waterfowl Preserve. Digital Painting by Ken Januski. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski<br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Above is the first digital painting I've ever done. Unlike Hockney I don't have any color printer let alone a huge one. So I can't print this out. It only lives on a screen. There is much to dislike about this. People spend too much time in front of screens as is. There is also the brighter than life luminosity of anything seen on a screen. BUT it was astonishing how easy I found it to make changes. Like Hockney I found that using layers made things much easier for me. Extraordinarily easier. I could make changes right and left, forward and backwards, upside down and right side up.</div><div><br /></div><div>In other words it seemed to be an extremely quick way to combine realism and abstraction but with the added ability to get rid of anything that struck me as a cliche almost immediately. I didn't have to move away from a cliche by finishing a painting or print and then starting another to try another path. I could try another path in about 5 seconds.</div><div><br /></div><div>So that was exhilarating. BUT it's still on a screen. There's no tactility, no sense of the handmade. I knew that my best bet was to try to reproduce it in one way or another with paint on canvas. The end result is a the top of the post.</div><div><br /></div><div>So that I hope explains somewhat why I might seem to bounce around a bit artistically. I'm just trying to make compelling and not cliched images. Often for me that means switching media and sometimes styles. But it's always in the interest of portraying something in a compelling way.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HlQcKIzqJUA/YVtU-5epfKI/AAAAAAAAIKw/eHflxqZ9i6sFM0RoJ6v30P-r34BWhYyjwCNcBGAsYHQ/s2000/whimbrels2MileLandingMKEDC021421.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1427" data-original-width="2000" height="228" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HlQcKIzqJUA/YVtU-5epfKI/AAAAAAAAIKw/eHflxqZ9i6sFM0RoJ6v30P-r34BWhYyjwCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/whimbrels2MileLandingMKEDC021421.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Whimbrels at 2-Mile Landing. Moku Hanga print. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Sometimes I try to move from one medium to another without realizing that it might not be easy to do without major changes. This and the other moku hanga print above I'm happy to say are going once again to be in the annual exhibit of The Society of Wildlife Artists at the Mall Galleries in London. This is a link to an online gallery of much of the work, including mine, <a href="https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/natural-eye-2021">https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/natural-eye-2021</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>This was based on a fairly painterly painting. I tried to reproduce that in this print. And I think I was successful. It's perhaps even more vibrant than the painting itself. But it also has all sort of niggling areas, areas that require more care and craftsmanship than I care to give them. A master carver could have carved a closer imitation of the painting. But I'm not one and never will be. It's not my main goal. In the end I learned that, at least for now, I should use larger areas of color in my moku hanga. And that's pretty much what I did in the subsequent print of the Red Knots. It is a continuing search for the right image and the right medium</div><div><br /></div><div>Based on what I just said I can pretty much guarantee I will not try a moku hanga of the Red Phalarope, at least not without massive changes!! I should add that since I've done so many acrylic paintings over the last 12-18 months I have added a link to them under the Gallery heading at top right of this page.</div><div><p></p><p><br /><br /> </p></div>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-8050419400247088392021-08-26T14:19:00.001-04:002021-08-26T16:02:55.102-04:00It All Started with Shina<p>
</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wWS_B3PBTM/YSfPJBnzcLI/AAAAAAAAIKA/6mRdqslSipUdMLbGKvCFJcyv8LNB1gBVwCNcBGAsYHQ/s2000/redKnotsLaughingGullsNishinouchiEDC080921.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1458" data-original-width="2000" height="233" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wWS_B3PBTM/YSfPJBnzcLI/AAAAAAAAIKA/6mRdqslSipUdMLbGKvCFJcyv8LNB1gBVwCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/redKnotsLaughingGullsNishinouchiEDC080921.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red Knots and Laughing Gulls at Reed's Beach. Moku Hanga print on Nishinouchi paper by Ken Januski. Copyright 2021.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />
I'm very happy to say that one of my Moku Hanga prints will be included in the <a href="http://2021.mokuhanga.org/" target="_blank">Sumi-Fusion Exhibition at the International Moku Hanga Conference 2021</a>. I had hoped that I would have at least one print accepted but I also feared that my relative newness to the medium, not to mention my skills with it, might work against me.<p>I received an email about it last week after just completing these two versions of the Red Knots and Laughing Gulls moku hanga. Above is an edition on Nishinouchi. Below is the first version on Masa Dosa. Unfortunately the photo is not shot in the brightest light so it looks a bit dark.<br />
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</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QrfzLvcOxv0/YSfPJBte12I/AAAAAAAAIKI/z10CgJ7g7skYh_aHQTkDGam0qZuKzZ8HgCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/redKnotLaughingGullsMKEDMasaDosa1710580V2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1527" data-original-width="2048" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QrfzLvcOxv0/YSfPJBte12I/AAAAAAAAIKI/z10CgJ7g7skYh_aHQTkDGam0qZuKzZ8HgCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/redKnotLaughingGullsMKEDMasaDosa1710580V2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red Knots and Laughing Gulls at Reed's Beach. Moku Hanga print on Masa Dosa paper by Ken Januski. Copyright 2021.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br />
I can still remember how I made my first step toward Moku Hanga. I was printing a linocut of a Hummingbird Clearwing Moth in 2013. I was using Gamblin oil based inks. But I decided I'd like to try printing the background on Shina plywood, just to see what happened. There was such a feeling of openess, of a breathing surface to the result that I became completely taken with Shina. That print is below.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s6lFNUz4Tzg/UfwA2lefvnI/AAAAAAAAEzE/LhQP7aP-lAwgZ5BrTUChQKDPvebwDVegACPcBGAYYCw/s500/hummingbirdMothEDC080213.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="500" height="209" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s6lFNUz4Tzg/UfwA2lefvnI/AAAAAAAAEzE/LhQP7aP-lAwgZ5BrTUChQKDPvebwDVegACPcBGAYYCw/s320/hummingbirdMothEDC080213.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hummingbird Clearwing Moth. Three block combination Woodcut/Linocut by Ken Januski. Copyright 2013.</td></tr></tbody></table>
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In my many years as an abstract painter I primarily used acrylic paint. Only toward the end, partly due to a gift from a new graduate student who wanted to encourage me, a newly graduated graduate student, to switch to oil painting, did I start painting in oil. To make a very long story fairly short I never minded the somewhat plastic surface of acrylic painting. I sort of liked the fact that you couldn't sink into it, that it instead seemed to come out at you.<br /><br />
So when I started printing, first with linocuts then woodcuts I wasn't bothered by the plastic surface that could result from the oil based inks that I used, especially when I painted one color over another over another, etc. But then I was. Too much plastic I thought! So that is what I liked with the Hummingbird Clearwing Moth print. It was softer.<br /><br />
Again to make another long story short four years later I eventually did my first experiment with Moku Hanga. That was in early 2017. I have not turned back to other methods of printmaking. But I have also struggled! In this type of printmaking there are no machines involved, no printing presses. At least for me. The simplicity, the non-toxic materials, the immediacy and the complex tradition are both appealing, and also to a certain extent difficult. For better or worse you the printmaker have pretty much control over everything. If you're successful you'll get a striking print. But there are a million things that can go wrong.<br /><br />
I've always been happy with my Moku Hanga prints. But I've also known how much better they could be, at least in terms of technique. So that's a large part of the reason that I applied for this show with trepidation. I'm happy to say I'm glad it didn't get the better of me and scare me off from applying! Below is the print that will be in the show. It is in Nara, Japan in late November/early December 2021. As with 'The Natural Eye,' the annual exhibition of The Society of Wildlife Artists', it is an honor to be in this exhibition. There will be an online exhibition and I will eventually write a short post on that when it is online.<div><br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4oWwYJZr5io/YSfPJHaNlOI/AAAAAAAAIKE/WIr1HfzXeksWVEIkQbBIfJQpNJjk81eegCNcBGAsYHQ/s1401/gckiMKNishinouchiScan081821.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1401" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4oWwYJZr5io/YSfPJHaNlOI/AAAAAAAAIKE/WIr1HfzXeksWVEIkQbBIfJQpNJjk81eegCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/gckiMKNishinouchiScan081821.jpg" width="228" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Frenzy of Golden-crowed Kinglets. Moku Hanga print on Nishinouchi p<br />aper by Ken Januski. Copyright 2020.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
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<p></p><p></p><p></p></div>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-88453462806304260572021-07-02T17:12:00.000-04:002021-07-02T17:12:07.610-04:00Three Red Knots, Ten Warblers and Some Laughing Gulls<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MbWa4QKRwpc/YN96PW48QPI/AAAAAAAAIIs/3Od5zpfzevQgOUwhbstNMNoK6485QbWkwCNcBGAsYHQ/s2000/redKnotsLaughingGullsMKMasaDosa171001.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1442" data-original-width="2000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MbWa4QKRwpc/YN96PW48QPI/AAAAAAAAIIs/3Od5zpfzevQgOUwhbstNMNoK6485QbWkwCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/redKnotsLaughingGullsMKMasaDosa171001.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red Knots and Laughing Gulls. Late proof of 11x8.5 inch moku hanga. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<p>It's been quite a while since I've posted anything and I am well aware of that. To make a very long story short I was worried about making my last print a bit too painterly and thus introducing more technical problems into moku hanga than I wanted to deal with. This was especially true because I'm not enamored of technique, though I can admire it in others. It's just not where I want to spend my time and energy.</p><p>So I've been thinking about a way to continue moku hanga but with simpler shapes, perhaps more outlines and less need for getting extremely small areas to register correctly. Basically this just means using the strengths of an artistic medium in concert with my own artistic strengths.</p><p>I've been working on this print of some Red Knots and Laughing Gulls for about a month. It was prompted by a news report of a great decline in the count of Red Knots along the Delaware Bay this spring. This print is based on photos and field sketches from there from 2019. Most likely this is the final test proof and I'll start printing an edition soon. This proof is on Masa Dosa.</p><p>So.................it may be that my moku hanga will continue in a simpler manner such as you see here. Time will tell. But speaking of painterly that really is my background. I've spent more time as a painter than a printmaker though that is slowly changing. In the spring of last year I did my first acrylic painting of an American wood warbler. Once I started I couldn't stop. So over the next year I painted the seven paintings and ten warbler species that you see below. It was greatly liberating to have the painterly freedom that most printing lacks.</p><p>But now for a change it's nice to be back in a more disciplined medium.</p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ijOxV2ti81k/YN96No538XI/AAAAAAAAIIY/qGRnGAb5YeYy43JLdR89LgGAuHJ6D4EaQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1074/blackburnianCanadaBTGNAC1600708.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1074" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ijOxV2ti81k/YN96No538XI/AAAAAAAAIIY/qGRnGAb5YeYy43JLdR89LgGAuHJ6D4EaQCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/blackburnianCanadaBTGNAC1600708.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canada, Blackburnian and Black-throated Green Warblers. 9x12 acrylic painting. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kqtFwY_agjg/YN96NlYky5I/AAAAAAAAIIg/U3fM0zgwsQgl_4ExTY-64jpXmPz20HbqACNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/louisianaWaterthrushAC1680456.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1540" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kqtFwY_agjg/YN96NlYky5I/AAAAAAAAIIg/U3fM0zgwsQgl_4ExTY-64jpXmPz20HbqACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/louisianaWaterthrushAC1680456.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lousiana Warbler Along Wissahickon. 9x12 acrylic painting. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J0oQNvFmkv8/YN96NnWLDoI/AAAAAAAAIIc/dtSU3ldIfFkAD5pPruJdQv9ynywvvU7gwCNcBGAsYHQ/s800/mourningBlackThroatedBlueWarblersAC1520204.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="800" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J0oQNvFmkv8/YN96NnWLDoI/AAAAAAAAIIc/dtSU3ldIfFkAD5pPruJdQv9ynywvvU7gwCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/mourningBlackThroatedBlueWarblersAC1520204.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mourning and Black-throated Blue Warblers. 9x12 acrylic painting. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KbvdR50OZoQ/YN96ONmg55I/AAAAAAAAIIk/pESdPCdMtuMVC651CfMOs-7S6ZvcC2JMwCNcBGAsYHQ/s2000/pineWarblerRingNeckedDucksAC1680458.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1509" data-original-width="2000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KbvdR50OZoQ/YN96ONmg55I/AAAAAAAAIIk/pESdPCdMtuMVC651CfMOs-7S6ZvcC2JMwCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/pineWarblerRingNeckedDucksAC1680458.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pine Warbler with Ring-necked Ducks. 9x12 acrylic painting. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fUSkPZQ-6-k/YN96Omw_fnI/AAAAAAAAIIo/NQXcfLKqaV0hlsmny9Mzp8AX07c-_K12ACNcBGAsYHQ/s800/prothonotaryWarblerWissahickonAC1520987.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fUSkPZQ-6-k/YN96Omw_fnI/AAAAAAAAIIo/NQXcfLKqaV0hlsmny9Mzp8AX07c-_K12ACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/prothonotaryWarblerWissahickonAC1520987.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Prothonotary Warbler along Wissahickon. 9x12 acrylic painting. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MbWa4QKRwpc/YN96PW48QPI/AAAAAAAAIIs/3Od5zpfzevQgOUwhbstNMNoK6485QbWkwCNcBGAsYHQ/s2000/redKnotsLaughingGullsMKMasaDosa171001.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1442" data-original-width="2000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MbWa4QKRwpc/YN96PW48QPI/AAAAAAAAIIs/3Od5zpfzevQgOUwhbstNMNoK6485QbWkwCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/redKnotsLaughingGullsMKMasaDosa171001.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red Knots and Laughing Gulls. Late proof of 11x8.5 inch moku hanga. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mHopFCeXPyI/YN97JcQv07I/AAAAAAAAIJE/k53TqzTY7xwF5LHYbisLINKrfsrcy8mKACNcBGAsYHQ/s1066/redstartParulaBTBLAC1500685.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mHopFCeXPyI/YN97JcQv07I/AAAAAAAAIJE/k53TqzTY7xwF5LHYbisLINKrfsrcy8mKACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/redstartParulaBTBLAC1500685.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">American Redstart, Northern Parula and Black-throated Blue Warbler. 9x12 acrylic painting. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-krXUIlunfrQ/YN96PpCnjZI/AAAAAAAAIIw/PBTCyyz1wJ8kHsi1QZBPjsaqkTfvegahQCNcBGAsYHQ/s800/yellowBreastedChatACFinished1520627.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="800" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-krXUIlunfrQ/YN96PpCnjZI/AAAAAAAAIIw/PBTCyyz1wJ8kHsi1QZBPjsaqkTfvegahQCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/yellowBreastedChatACFinished1520627.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yellow-breasted Chat. 9x12 acrylic painting. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><br /> <p></p>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-12109702302015736832021-05-06T12:31:00.010-04:002021-05-06T13:50:55.224-04:00In Between<p>
</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ikh2Ano6SYg/YJQPNA4UvdI/AAAAAAAAIGU/i4Q38zpBcdcSd7d8Cg9S88-5vzJBid9hACNcBGAsYHQ/s2000/pineWarblerRingNeckedDucksAC1660636.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1520" data-original-width="2000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ikh2Ano6SYg/YJQPNA4UvdI/AAAAAAAAIGU/i4Q38zpBcdcSd7d8Cg9S88-5vzJBid9hACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/pineWarblerRingNeckedDucksAC1660636.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Acrylic painting in progress of Pine Warbler and Ring-necked Ducks. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
It's a bit surprising to me that I haven't posted something new in over two months. It is NOT Covid-related. I know, or at least I've heard, that Covid has left many people in odd states of suspended animation, at least in terms of their mental state. But for me it was something else completely.<div><br /></div><div>After finishing my last moku hanga I realized that once again I was trying to treat my print like a painting, where if something didn't look quite right I could always put a little dab of color here, change a shape there, etc., etc. This is part of the beauty of painting, especially oil or acrylic painting. But it seems like a mistake for printmaking, which with the exception of lithography really is primarily linear.</div><div><br /></div><div>Moku hanga is great for color but to a large extent it seems to be kept within clearly delineated shapes. Though I do love line and shape I don't like to be completely beholden to them. But I won't go on. To make a long story short: in printmaking I seem to always swing back and forth between more painterly prints and more linear ones. At some point they just get too painterly and I pause to think about what I'm doing.</div><div><br /></div><div>But as John Kruk, at least I believe it was him, said in the leadup to a broadcast of a recent Philadelphia Phillies game: "Think long, think wrong." He was referring to a pitcher, thinking too much about his pitches but it could just as well be applied to artists. It's easy to get so lost in thinking about your art that you stop doing any.</div><div><br /></div><div>For me one antidote to that is painting, especially acrylic painting. I rediscovered this medium during semi-lockdown last year. The freedom it offered was thoroughly welcome. After all the planning and constraints of the moku hanga method it was great to feel completely free. So rather than think more about my printmaking I just switched back to acrylic. I did two new paintings, the Pine Warbler with Ring-necked Ducks above and the Louisiana Waterthrush above.</div><div><br /></div><div>But after I'd gotten this far I decided I needed to let them sit before determining whether to do more or to call them done. A month or more later I'm still letting them sit.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SEz3hj8FR-A/YJQPLyJXRzI/AAAAAAAAIGM/BKl9t0oNXU0rfpWqA04sVxUzMOws-oTLQCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/louisianaWaterthrushAC1660632.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1522" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SEz3hj8FR-A/YJQPLyJXRzI/AAAAAAAAIGM/BKl9t0oNXU0rfpWqA04sVxUzMOws-oTLQCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/louisianaWaterthrushAC1660632.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Acrylic painting of Louisiana Waterthrush. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Sometime in April, knowing that migration would soon be starting I decided to do a few pencil and watercolor studies of warblers from photos I've taken over the years. They are seen in the next two photos. Their only purpose is to try to familiarize myself with their shapes, stances, anything that seems unique to them, so that when I see them live I might be able to sketch them. This never works!!!</div><div><br /></div><div>The sketches may be alright in their own right but when I'm faced with a nano-second view of a warbler, as I have been a lot over the last few weeks, just about everything I know falls by the wayside. I think the best you can say is that some knowledge gets buried deep in your consciousness somewhere and may come out without you even knowing it. I wouldn't put money on that though.</div><div><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w36XZ6iYwMU/YJQPMNBTU8I/AAAAAAAAIGQ/Adxf64pb8F0pL4EWWU74XaNmYPK7xOUhACNcBGAsYHQ/s2000/palmWarblerPencilWCSketches1660991.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1438" data-original-width="2000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w36XZ6iYwMU/YJQPMNBTU8I/AAAAAAAAIGQ/Adxf64pb8F0pL4EWWU74XaNmYPK7xOUhACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/palmWarblerPencilWCSketches1660991.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil and watercolor sketches of Palm Warblers. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i22o-nxx2iI/YJQPMqAYJKI/AAAAAAAAIGY/TkcbTgKtK-koduZB4u2zhxk08WABTNwbQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1000/palmWarblersPencilWCSketches1660801.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="715" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i22o-nxx2iI/YJQPMqAYJKI/AAAAAAAAIGY/TkcbTgKtK-koduZB4u2zhxk08WABTNwbQCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/palmWarblersPencilWCSketches1660801.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil and watercolor sketches of Palm Warblers. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>One other thing that happened during the first few months of the year is that I bought a very small drawing by John Busby, author of 'Drawing Birds' and numerous other books. In looking at the whimbrel drawing I realized how thoroughly Busby knew his subject and how deft he was with his mark making. There is an unbelievable grace, liveliness and relaxed quality to the drawing.</div><div><br /></div><div>This in turn got me to reread some of his other books. That coupled with the arrival of larger migrants that might stay in one spot for a second or two convinced me to do some field sketches with my sumi brush pen. The Bobolink and Green Heron drawings were done just as lines. When I got back to the studio I used a waterbrush to create a gray wash from newly put down ink from the brush. I also added larger areas of black using the brush by itself.</div><div><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tvaejZuyozo/YJQPLQRJ8KI/AAAAAAAAIGI/UWRQ_cxxOSE9lby89OwLnvfv7duFUCzywCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/bobolinkDixonFeedingOnDandelionSumiFS050221.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tvaejZuyozo/YJQPLQRJ8KI/AAAAAAAAIGI/UWRQ_cxxOSE9lby89OwLnvfv7duFUCzywCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/bobolinkDixonFeedingOnDandelionSumiFS050221.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sumi brush pen sketch with wash of Bobolink on Dandelion. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TgSUllxac5w/YJQPLZbsm0I/AAAAAAAAIGA/X9qWOH_ijzID5EC0veh2OR7mnBY7T1jewCNcBGAsYHQ/s2000/greenHeronMorrisSumiFS050121.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TgSUllxac5w/YJQPLZbsm0I/AAAAAAAAIGA/X9qWOH_ijzID5EC0veh2OR7mnBY7T1jewCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/greenHeronMorrisSumiFS050121.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sumi brush pen sketch with wash of Green Heron. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>And finally I was struck by the complex shapes a Great Blue Heron made as it clumsily came in for a landing at the Upper Roxborough Reservoir Preserve a few weeks ago. I remembered John Busby talking about birding with the purpose of collecting interesting shapes rather than making finely differentiated bird IDs. So when I got home I tried to recreate the scene from memory, including the complex shape of the heron and the Belted Kingfisher flying above him.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's been said that all art really aspires to music. This makes sense to me and I think applies most to painting. Painting, especially abstract painting, really can be like music. But there's also an inherent human drive to draw. In this sense you can say all art aspires to drawing. But drawing can become too mimetic, too detailed and too dead at times. At that time you might say that all art aspires to cartoons. This may seem sacrilegious but I often think that it is true. A cartoon-like drawing, like the one below, can often get closer to life than anything else.</div><div><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mAgi0Dtt8VI/YJQPLWSNBjI/AAAAAAAAIGE/e-2N63zASksp_Gc7iWMBB7c5F8W9ZLFFQCNcBGAsYHQ/s2000/landingGreatBlueHeronURRPSumiFS042321.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1532" data-original-width="2000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mAgi0Dtt8VI/YJQPLWSNBjI/AAAAAAAAIGE/e-2N63zASksp_Gc7iWMBB7c5F8W9ZLFFQCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/landingGreatBlueHeronURRPSumiFS042321.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sumi brush pen sketch with wash of Great Blue Heron and Belted Kingfisher. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>And now migration is in full swing. It's difficult to spend any time working on art, unless it's sketching in the field. I remain 'in between.' When migration has ended hopefully I'll have figured out how to finish the paintings and also how to proceed with printmaking.</div>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-78226681990847055562021-02-04T12:05:00.004-05:002021-02-04T13:49:12.778-05:00Craftsmanship and Art<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oshnxPxBEzs/YBwUoYcig-I/AAAAAAAAIEo/7UpfpzkPO0Is5x_HjjaKobYUkyduEb7gACNcBGAsYHQ/s1760/whimbrelMKEDTorinokoC1650038.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1277" data-original-width="1760" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oshnxPxBEzs/YBwUoYcig-I/AAAAAAAAIEo/7UpfpzkPO0Is5x_HjjaKobYUkyduEb7gACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/whimbrelMKEDTorinokoC1650038.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Whimbrel at 2-Mile Landing. Original Moku Hanga by Ken Januski. Copyright 2021.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><div>I've spent a lot of time over at least the last five years listening to, reading about, and listening to audiobooks about music, particularly classical music. One of the things that I've particularly noticed is that, at least in the past and I'd guess today as well, musicians learn some basics, for example harmony, sonata form and other forms, etc. The vocabulary for musical notation is astounding. I say all this as a non-musician so I realize that I'd have a slightly different take on this if I were a musician. But on the whole I think I'm correct.</div><div><br /></div><div>Still it stands in stark contrast to my artistic education and I'd guess the artistic education of many. I have a lot of art education. 80% I'd guess is in studio art, two years at a community college, a year plus as an undergraduate at a very good school on west coast, and graduate studies at the same west coast school and at an Ivy League school on the east coast. And two graduate degrees in art. Big Deal! No, not at all. All that education doesn't necessarily translate into good art. I only mention it because there was a common theme to those many years of art education as a studio artist: be enthusiastic about what you do and have at it! That was it, though it wasn't put in such blunt terms.</div><div><br /></div><div>Was I unhappy with this? No. It's just what I wanted. Particularly I wanted to PAINT, and paint I did, mostly on my own, but also with a few regular studio mates, especially on the west coast. I don't think either we the students or our teachers expected we'd get a much out of the formal classes. We'd learn and improve through studio practice.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's only in retrospect, realizing how much theory that there is in music and musical education, that I wonder about art education. Is there something similar in art? Is it just taught at schools other than the ones I went to? Would I have wanted a different education, one more structured and with a distinct syllabus, if I actually had the opportunity? My guess is that no I would not.</div><div><br /></div><div>There of course is the old nostrum about reinventing the wheel. Generally it is a very good nostrum. I'm just not sure how well it works in art. Since I live in Philadelphia I do have to wonder about the Pennsylvania Academy of Art. I never took any courses there though I have known people who studied there. But I never talked to them about their training. But I do have the impression that at least the painters get a fairly classical education. And at least one of my old friends who shared a studio above mine and who studied there went on to fame and fortune as a more or less contemporary classical painter. I could tell that we looked at painting quite differently, though I don't think he ever looked down on my own work. And I admired the technique and ambition of his own work. But we did seem to come from different worlds.</div><div><br /></div><div>In any case it just reminds me that people do get different training in the arts and often that training stays with them.</div><div><br /></div><div>Before I started classes at the west coast school I arrived on campus a few months early and took some printmaking courses in the student union. They were pretty much one on one and I loved them. I learned enough to do some lithography, etching and a bit of aquatint, just enough for me to start experimenting on my own. I loved it. But in a few months my classes started, I had almost 24 hour access to a painting studio and I jumped back into painting. The person who taught me printmaking at the student union was also a student in printmaking. So I was introduced to both the faculty and her fellow students in printmaking. But there was just something that put me off about taking a course in it. There seemed to be some odor of technique, of tradition, of something or other that just seemed foreign to the freewheeling attitude I had toward art. I never had any subsequent training in printmaking.</div><div><br /></div><div>So here we are today, where I have been doing more printmaking than painting over the last 10 years or more. I started with linoleum block printing, then added some shina wood blocks in conjunction with lino, then did just western style printing with one or more shina wood blocks. And now I'm finishing my fourth year of moku hanga. My most recent print, about 6x8 inches is at the top of this post.</div><div><br /></div><div>This very lengthy introduction to my newest print stems from the fact that it could look to many like I have neither general printmaking technique, nor more specific moku hanga technique. Additionally I realize that almost all of my moku hanga prints probably seem quite foreign to the spirit of traditional moku hanga. I have to say I can't really deny that.</div><div><br /></div><div>And this I think gets to the title of this post: Craftsmanship and Art. When I was getting my education in art crafts, at least as far as I could tell, were starting to be considered by many in the art world if not as exactly equals then at least on the same fluid, sliding scale. But that's not what I'm talking about. I have no argument with the idea of traditional crafts as art. (I don't know enough about non-traditional crafts to have an opinion on them). But some art media I believe have more of a craftsmanship tradition than others, at least today. Printmaking seems to value craft more than painting.</div><div><br /></div><div>One of the first things I realized once I started using more than one block in any type of relief print was that registration was a big consideration. If you use more than one block it generally is with the purpose of using a different color and you want the second color to register(match up) with what you've already printed on your printmaking paper from printing the first block. As I didn't have a printing press I used various handmade jigs and devices to help with registration. They helped but there were still problems.</div><div><br /></div><div>The thing is I didn't really consider them serious problems. For myself I didn't care all that much if things lined up properly. My guess is that if I went through all of my multiple block prints of any type I'd find that areas of color rarely match up perfectly. It's not a goal of mine.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now I have to say, as I'm sure most printmakers will say, that sounds a lot like sour grapes or something similar. You choose to be happy with less than perfect registration in printing because you're technically incapable of getting perfect registration! I'd have to agree that I'm technically incapable of getting perfect registration. But I also don't believe it's worth the time and effort, at least for me. Just what is gained and what is lost by perfect registration? For me not much is gained, but a lot might be lost, including the ability for the print to breathe.</div><div><br /></div><div>But it's very easy to see where at least in printmaking good registration is just considered part of the craft of printmaking. Since I didn't have an education in printmaking I'm only guessing that this is the case. But I'm pretty sure that I'm right.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is only one element of what I consider, from an outsider's perspective, to be the craft of printmaking. Another element is consistency in prints in an edition. Especially with a complicated print involving many colors, many blocks, perhaps intricate carving there are more and more areas where the smallest little slip or lack of concentration will make one print slightly different than another. Printmakers have to decide whether or not to include small anomalies in an edition, My guess is that much of the final decision depends on how you've been trained.</div><div><br /></div><div>For me this is particularly difficult where I've spent a lot of time and effort in the printing, mainly due to it being a complicated print. After all that effort do I really want to toss out more than 50% of what I've printed? Of course not and yet expectations are that there be at least some basic similarity between prints in an edition. My guess is that I'm more lenient than many but still I cull a lot from editions.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's easy to understand this desire to have a consistent edition. And yet here too I find that the craftsmanship of printing is perhaps getting in the way a bit of the art of printing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Moku hanga has a much better method of registration than western hand-printed prints. And yet I suspect that because of this there is a greater expectation of excellent registration in moku hanga prints. By those standards I fail pretty badly. I suspect moku hanga also has particularly high standards of paint application, even surface, etc., etc. mainly due to the incredible craftsmanship of traditional moku hanga. Though I strive for these and don't usually have deliberately uneven surfaces it's not something I care about all that much. It undoubtedly is part of traditional moku hanga. It's just not something I can bring myself to consider the most important part of the print. I usually won't cull a print because the color application isn't the best.</div><div><br /></div><div>For me it is the overall experience of the print that is most important. What is it like visually, not technically? For me that means that I'm often quite happy with my prints, especially my moku hanga, even though I'm also disappointed that the registration isn't a bit better, the paint coverage a bit better, etc., etc. For many I imagine it looks as though I've failed at the craft of printing and it's hard to see beyond that. I can only guess but I expect that this is true. I can understand it. But I'm still quite happy with my prints.</div><div><br /></div><div>It may be pushing this to suggest something similar in painting and drawing but I'm going to anyway. I love drawing, and painting as well. But I don't at all like drawings that enclose shapes in non-stop, continuous, undifferentiated lines. That may be a technique that was taught in classical academies hundreds of years ago but it is largely lifeless. The varying and incomplete lines of someone like Rembrandt are far more impressive. They go beyond technique into art, into something that is moving. The art of Rembrandt breathes.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've gone on at such great length that I'm reluctant to say much more. In some ways I'm just thinking out loud. In the end I guess I'd use Winslow Homer as an example. He did quality wood engravings in his younger years. He was a master of line. But as he matured he didn't let himself be constrained by line. Instead it became an often invisible structure in his wonderfully free watercolors. Technique has its uses but it can also be the kiss of death for an artist. My guess is that many artists would be better off knowing when to forget about technique. On the other hand I can't help but think of Odubel Herrera, Pat Burrell and Hunter Pence, all players at one time or another for the local Philadelphia Phillies. I used to scream every time I saw one of them at the plate with their idiosyncratic wild swings. But they still got hits. I hope my prints don't remind anyone of them, especially Pence or Herrera!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div> </div><div><br /></div></div>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-53867884720318311132021-01-11T17:11:00.000-05:002021-01-11T17:11:25.030-05:00WIP - 2021<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dN25Z1Kg4ic/X_zKPLJlOiI/AAAAAAAAIEA/-zjIbfl3PRomzVcEaH7Hdo7z-9IXe8fgQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1000/whimbrels2MileLandingMKProof7_1640770.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="717" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dN25Z1Kg4ic/X_zKPLJlOiI/AAAAAAAAIEA/-zjIbfl3PRomzVcEaH7Hdo7z-9IXe8fgQCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/whimbrels2MileLandingMKProof7_1640770.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Working proof on moku hanga of Whimbrel at 2-Mile Landing. Copyright 2021 by Ken Januski.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> Very sloppy printing I know. This is the best of four proofs I've done on a new moku hanga. It might look familiar as it's based on the acrylic painting I showed in the last post. So far I've used seven 6x8 inch blocks. I need at least one and perhaps two more. As I got further along in proofing I started losing patience in my printing because I was eager to see if the print was starting to come together. So what had been a fairly nicely printed proof got sloppy at the end.</p><p>When I started I just grabbed some paper that was lying around, not even sure if it was printmaking paper. Only as I was printing did I happen to see an Arches watermark. Eventually I'll print on a different paper but this one has been fine for proofing.</p><p>After I'd done block six I believe, the dark green block I still had only areas of flat color. Something inme wanted to scream. Though flat color, with possible grading through bokashi, and with some complex but regular pattern are part of traditional moku hanga I needed something different. That's been true in most of my moku hanga. I just am not comfortable with all that flat color. So I carved into much of that green block, creating quite a lot of pattern, movement, etc. I think it was just what the print needed. I did the same to a lesser extent with the last block, the brown one, though that one I had planned at least a little variation on.</p><p>So there you have it: a work in progress. As with most of my work it is an ongoing dance between simple and complex. Stayed tuned to see where the dance ends.</p>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-68442114250579293142020-12-20T13:42:00.000-05:002020-12-20T13:42:29.558-05:00Is That What I Want?
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HLPdAPlr-sw/X9-LJyGMmMI/AAAAAAAAIC8/-xFShEgp87Aa_e1DD91Yca5D6M3q8rBCwCNcBGAsYHQ/s1000/whimbrel2MileLandingACFinished1640028.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="757" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HLPdAPlr-sw/X9-LJyGMmMI/AAAAAAAAIC8/-xFShEgp87Aa_e1DD91Yca5D6M3q8rBCwCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/whimbrel2MileLandingACFinished1640028.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Whimbrel at 2 Mile Landing. 9x12 acrylic painting. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>
I have had a number of "successes" and a number of "failures" in my artistic career. I put quotes around the terms to indicate that there is a bit of artificiality in them. For instance I have been in a number of competitive art shows in my career and I have been rejected from quite a few as well. I have gotten some likes on Facebook, a very low standard of appreciation I know, and I think a much greater number of non-responses. I have sold some work, often looking quite different from one another, but I haven't sold anywhere near as much work as I'd like.
</p><p>Sometimes these are more meaningful to me than others, for instance I'm always quite happy to have my work accepted into the annual exhibit of The Society of Wildlife Artists because I think so much of the work that I'm showing with. I've been excited to get into some competitive shows when I was an abstract artist often to find that I wasn't at all happy with the work that hung beside mine. But I also realized early on that competitive shows are often the end result of competing tastes on the part of judges or other 'stakeholders' and that the show reflects it. Often they are odd hodgepodges. Again I think that this is not the case with 'The Natural Eye,' and that's why I'm always happy to be in it. I used to be somewhat depressed not to get into another competitive show that I applied to frequently. But I always got the catalog of the show. And finally, after quite a few years, I finally said to myself: "This is silly. I don't LIKE most of the art in the show." And a year or two after that I stopped submitting work.</p><p>My end of submissions isn't necessarily a critique of the show but it is an understanding of myself by myself. I'm far better off creating art that I like and only trying to exhibit it at shows I'd be happy to be in. What's the point of trying to get into a show, even a prestigious one, if you don't like most of the art in it? In the same vein what's the point of trying to gain entry to various galleries or associations if you don't appreciate the work of most of the other artists involved?</p><p>To make a long story short at some point I decided I really have to make sure I'm the judge who counts most. What do I think of my work?!</p><p>And that leads me to my most recent painting at top. I like it!</p><p>I have been reading Tolstoy's <i>Anna Karenina </i>over the last month or so. In it there is an artist, Mikhailov. I'm not really sure of why he's there but what struck me is a section where he expects very little from the people who come to look at his paintings, then begins to think much more of them when they say something that might possibly be interpreted as positive. Tolstoy I think is criticizing him but I think the scene might also ring true for many artists. As soon as someone says they like your work, or purchases it, you tend to see them and your work in a slightly better light.</p><p>I'm reminded of that by the watercolor painting I did of two Whimbel pictured below.</p><p><br /></p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2CXY_9slQN0/X9-LJzjgDnI/AAAAAAAAIDE/BdWpa7A11o4NeEu2jKIbYgrkSGhcmFicwCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/2whimbrel2mileLandingWC1630918.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1693" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2CXY_9slQN0/X9-LJzjgDnI/AAAAAAAAIDE/BdWpa7A11o4NeEu2jKIbYgrkSGhcmFicwCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/2whimbrel2mileLandingWC1630918.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two Whimbrel at 2 Mile Landing. 12x16 watercolor. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski</td></tr></tbody></table><br />It is one of a number of paintings and drawings I did on the way to the painting at top. It is a bit more realistic. It's also true that I've sold a number of my watercolor paintings. I'm happy with the watercolor paintings and I'm happy that someone likes them well enough to buy them. But I realize that I might disappoint some of those buyers because I don't too often put those paintings up for sale. That's not because I'm too fond of them. It's because I don't do that many any more and I'm often not happy when I do most. But when I put them up for sale it's because I do like them.<div><br /></div><div>The thing is I realize that my own watercolor paintings don't do much for me. When I'm done with them I ask, as the title of a well-known blog says: Is That What I Want? I've come to realize that though I admire many who work in watercolor it's not something I really aspire to in my own work. When I do I often feel more like I'm imitating something I like rather than painting what I like.</div><div><br /></div><div>What I'm getting at is that whether I achieve what I want in a work of art, even if I don't know what that is when I start the art work, is what determines the artistic success. It is meaningful to me. There are times of course when I'm fooled. I think I've made some sort of breakthrough, then days, months or maybe years later I decide that the artwork wasn't all that I thought it was. But most times this is not true. If I'm really happy with a work I stay happy with it, even years later when I might work in a completely different matter.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've had a number of such moments with the acrylic paintings that I've done over the last 6-9 months. To me they are showing me the path of the future in my work both in paint and print.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some are more successful than others. The sumi brush pen and water soluble crayon drawing/painting below is somewhere in between. It seems like a step toward the painting at top. There are things I like about it but it seems a bit derivative. I'm not sure I would have done the painting at top without it. But the painting at top seems like What I Want.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TGvaNsOGXEQ/X9-LKL4eILI/AAAAAAAAIDI/J2I-2ML15TA_5LfohpHp6ivl5xU1AaAmACNcBGAsYHQ/s1000/whimbrel2MileLandingCrayon1630925.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TGvaNsOGXEQ/X9-LKL4eILI/AAAAAAAAIDI/J2I-2ML15TA_5LfohpHp6ivl5xU1AaAmACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/whimbrel2MileLandingCrayon1630925.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Whimbrel at 2 Mile Landing. 11x14 inch sumi brush pen and crayon drawing. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski</td></tr></tbody></table><br />I realize that not all artists can worry about What They Want. They have to worry about what their customers will buy so that they can pay the bills, etc., etc. I've seen no sign in my life that it's easy for an artist to make a living as an artist. Throughout history many of the most successful artists in any medium have had to keep their customers/patrons happy. I can't criticize that and I don't. What I'm saying is really more personal. I do know when I've done something that I'm happy with, regardless of what others think. That is my idea of artistic success.</div><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OaB3oD6MFSk/X9-LKTdzfRI/AAAAAAAAIDM/GLeEIYh0ZhUB6LrV52lSV8aN6paT6D3nACNcBGAsYHQ/s1546/whimbrelSketchesfrom2015.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1546" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OaB3oD6MFSk/X9-LKTdzfRI/AAAAAAAAIDM/GLeEIYh0ZhUB6LrV52lSV8aN6paT6D3nACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/whimbrelSketchesfrom2015.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Whimbrel Studies. Sumi Brush Pen. Copyright 2019 by Ken Januski</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Just to round off these thoughts the drawings above are done with sumi brush pen and are all based on photos that I took. I like them in many ways but I'll probably never really like work that I do that is based solely on photos.</div><div><br /></div><div>The sumi brush pen sketch below on the other hand was done from life at 2 Mile Landing in Cape May, NJ in May of 2019. I was looking through a scope at some distant whimbrel and was thrillled with this sketch that I did over a 5-10 minute period. Later I looked at it and realized how crude it was. But I still loved it! It captured my reaction to what I saw. It too is an artistic success, far more so than the sketches above or even some theoretical sketch from photos that is far more detailed. Such a sketch wouldn't be successful to me because it's not what I want. It would just be a study</div><div><br /></div><div>On the other hand I was thrilled with the field sketch below and I think I'm even more thrilled that i've been able to do a painting based on it that still has the same feeling. That to me is true artistic success.<br /> <p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7nYHVaA6s34/X9-MFbB9EmI/AAAAAAAAIDo/ThoICUypGVQ7YFrjvp6XCubBG23nBrOWACNcBGAsYHQ/s1000/3whimbrel2mileLandingSumiFS1630916.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="753" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7nYHVaA6s34/X9-MFbB9EmI/AAAAAAAAIDo/ThoICUypGVQ7YFrjvp6XCubBG23nBrOWACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/3whimbrel2mileLandingSumiFS1630916.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Whimbrel at 2 Mile Landing. Sumi brush pen field sketch. Copyright 2019 by Ken Januski.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p></p><p></p><p></p></div>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-89836199046341933242020-12-03T13:47:00.003-05:002020-12-03T13:47:29.504-05:00Leaping Into and Perhaps Beyond Cliche<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3geMUUhI8OY/X8koCs9thEI/AAAAAAAAICo/MNA7onbX6yIodw5izfHmoANeUDjAbYAuwCNcBGAsYHQ/s1000/btblFeedingOnDevilsWalkingStickMKV2C120320.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="710" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3geMUUhI8OY/X8koCs9thEI/AAAAAAAAICo/MNA7onbX6yIodw5izfHmoANeUDjAbYAuwCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/btblFeedingOnDevilsWalkingStickMKV2C120320.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Female Black-throated Blue Warbler Feeding on Devil's Walkingstick. Original Moku Hang by Ken Januski. Copyright 2020<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t1MIlJBJwOk/X8koCp9sABI/AAAAAAAAICk/_B6rMK-1y6g8xt4pheE4W0vrXFDhiK_FwCNcBGAsYHQ/s800/femaleLeapingBTBLPencilSketchCA110120.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="800" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t1MIlJBJwOk/X8koCp9sABI/AAAAAAAAICk/_B6rMK-1y6g8xt4pheE4W0vrXFDhiK_FwCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/femaleLeapingBTBLPencilSketchCA110120.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leaping Female Black-throated Blue Warbler. Pencil sketch by Ken Januski. Copyright 2020<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />With so many years of abstract painting behind me I found that I had a lot of artistic tools that also served me well when I started using subjects from nature. I didn't understand the structure of much of what I saw in nature. So I had a lot to learn about birds and insects, not to mention mammals, vegetation, etc. But there was one thing in naturalistic art, though also in the figure drawing that I spent a number of early years doing, that really wasn't in my abstract art. In fact off the top of my head I don't think it's in most abstract art. That is movement and/or weight.</p><p>I did a lot of figure drawing in my distant past, about 3 hours a night, 3-4 days a week for a year or more, followed by additional classes in graduate school that often included figure drawing. I loved figure drawing, though I particularly loved quicker poses. I'm not sure how fond I would have been of 1 hour plus poses. What I loved was trying to capture both movement AND a sense of weight and how it was distributed. No I don't mean how heavy a model might be. I mean an almost physical empathetic knowledge of whether there is a lot of weight on one leg, very little on another, a great stretch in one area of the body, perhaps with a contraction in another part of the body, etc., etc. I don't think this can be easily explained. You either look at a drawing and get that feeling of where the weight and movement is, or you don't, assuming of course that the artist captured it. Most of all I think it is a matter of physical empathy.</p><p>I've noticed this in the drawing of others, and also sculpture where it seems even more noticeable, with various subjects, people, horses, hippos, birds, etc. But with birds in particular there is one new element: loft, that physical sense of weight that you can sometimes see and feel when something is moving above the earth, sometimes 100s of feet, sometimes just a few feet as in the female Black-throated Blue Warbler above.</p><p>I was reminded a bit of this when I watched part of a so-so show on Rembrandt on tv last night. One early painting showed a hand that seemed to be lying lightly on whatever. But there was a definite sense of lightness. It wasn't a dead lobster, heavy as could be. It had the sensation of lightness. This in turn reminded me of seeing something similar in a hand by Giotto, probably a Madonna and child, seen at the Uffizi in Florence many years ago. Some of the best artists capture the weight of limbs as they portray them. Sometimes they are light but other times you get the sense of real weight bearing down into the ground.</p><p>Of course with birds the sense of weight is just different, at least if they're in flight. I have to confess that I've never flown, at least under my own power. Neither has any human as far as I know. And yet I think we can still feel the sense of soaring in a soaring hawk. Though humans have no real experience of flying or floating many can still 'feel' what it is like.</p><p>I know artists who can capture the sense of flight in birds while drawing them from life. I can't do that. Perhaps I could if I tried harder and had more experience with seeing birds in flight, particularly soaring raptors. But if pressed I think I could do a sketch with some sense of reality.</p><p>That is not the case with birds that leap into the air, mainly to pick off something to eat. This is a much less seen phenomenon than birds soaring. If it were much more common perhaps I would even try it from life. But the fact is often I don't even know it is happening. I only realize it because I take photos and some of them show the movement. So for instance with this female Black-throated Blue Warbler feeding on the berries of Devil's Walkingstick I really couldn't see what she was doing, even when looking throughout my high quality binoculars. Only the photos I took showed it.</p><p>So I'm faced with a dilemma. Do I want to paint or print a subject that requires photos? I really don't like art that shows a heavy reliance on photos. I'll admit that this could just be a matter of taste, which can be very personal and change from person to person. Nonetheless I really don't like such art. Too many well delineated ripples in water will drive me screaming from the room! Most often they can only be done by using photos. Humans don't see that way.</p><p>So deciding to use a photo of a bird leaping up into the air was hard for me. Not only will any art I do based on it look like it came from a photo but it might also look quite cliched: Bird In Flight. Nonetheless I decided to go ahead and use this as a subject. I did so because I think it's fascinating to see birds in flight. And I wanted to try to capture it.</p><p>As I was working on some of my recent acrylic paintings I kept noticing the sketch I'd done weeks previously of the Black-throated Blue. I guess you could say it just kept calling to me. Finally I decided to return to moku hanga using it as a subject. At top you see the finished result. There are two slightly different versions, one in a edition of 9, and the one pictured here in an edition of 8.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /><br /> </p>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-14242883903552520022020-10-30T10:55:00.001-04:002020-10-30T10:55:14.087-04:00Painter Watching 'Painters Painting', with Birds<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E27A7vMtm-E/X5wTRiGE2fI/AAAAAAAAICI/ljlHA-9J7ZoW3QlqSzbsfvAwp-4tKFiBgCNcBGAsYHQ/s800/chippingSparrowsAtHoustonAC1620880.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="800" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E27A7vMtm-E/X5wTRiGE2fI/AAAAAAAAICI/ljlHA-9J7ZoW3QlqSzbsfvAwp-4tKFiBgCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/chippingSparrowsAtHoustonAC1620880.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Three Chipping Sparrows at Houston Meadow. 9x12 Acrylic Painting by Ken Januski. Copyright @2020 by Ken Januski.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />I recently stumbled upon the old documentary film <i>Painters Painting, </i>by Emile de Antonio(1972). I would say that of all the films I've ever watched about art this was the most influential. Now I'm sure some readers might say: oh no, those horribly antiquated old male chauvinists and all their heroic paint-splattered gestures. Or perhaps any number of other things. And some will respond: oh yes, what a great film about great artists, including Helen Frankenthaler.</p><p>I have loved seeing it again but for a different reason than many might think. It reminded me that most if not all people, especially artists, probably have formative periods where the influences of those times stick with them more than any other later influences. I have no appreciation at all of Pop(actually included in this film), Minimalism, photographic appropriation, and any of the myriad art fads/movements that have occurred over the last 50 years or more whose names I probably don't even know.</p><p>I used to always be puzzled when I read that some of my favorite artists didn't go to museums or more particularly to galleries as they got older. They seemed to lose interest in newer art. Now that I'm older I understand this better. Though there may be new art, that does not necessarily make it compelling new art. It may seem to an older artist not all that much different than various types of art he has seen in his lifetime. I recently read Matisse's take on this in the second volume I believe of Hilary Spurling's biography. He didn't criticize newer art, as I'm much more likely to do, but just said that was the nature of the world, that youth always needed to find its own 'new' way. That makes sense to me. He didn't criticize newer art. He just wasn't particularly interested in it.</p><p>All of which means I think that many artists still seem anchored by their formative period, just as supposedly James Joyce was by his Christianity. He might reject it but it remained influential even as he got older. That's what I've realized as I have re-watched <i>Painters Painting</i>.</p><p>The things I thought about, or maybe just felt, when I was a young artist still are with me in one way or another. So when Frank Stella, probably the fastest talking artist I've ever heard, talks about his desire to remove any sense of space, of depth, of reference to the real world in his paintings of the the time of the film it rings a bell. That's what I wanted to do in the late 70s. There just seemed to be something too quaint, cute, sentimental about including any type of subject matter. Eventually, quite obviously to anyone who knows my work, I changed my mind. But it was a goal that affected me and hundreds if not thousands or hundreds of thousands of artists at one time.</p><p>So that is what is so fascinating about this film. It's not spin. And though there are segments with art critics and gallery owners and even some collectors the film is primarily the artists, mainly painters, talking. And you feel that they are absolutely sincere. This is what they thought and felt deeply as they made their art. It's not often you get to see something like this. Even if you hate their art, and I definitely don't, I think many people who see the film will be taken by their passion and perhaps begin to see their art freshly.</p><p>On the other hand, even if they're impressed by their sincerity, they might still wonder why in the world anyone would want to remove any reference to the visible world from their work. And I can't explain it myself. But it was something that I definitely felt. And I don't believe it was because I learned this in school or in any other way. I just seem to have absorbed it from somewhere, just like many people just seem incapable of listening to classical music right now. It 'seems' irrelevant, though of course it's not.</p><p>I really didn't know much about de Antonio, the director. But I just learned that he was fairly leftist and mainly did political films. Supposedly the FBI had a large file on him. But in my recent viewing I happened to notice a couple of things I hadn't before. Like when one of the artists, I think Kenneth Noland or maybe Morris Louis, says that he realizes his work is only for very rich people with sophisticated taste. Of when de Antonio quizzes Leo Castelli about how much he makes, about the whole monetary aspect of the art business. It's just something I noticed in passing. But it made me wonder if underneath it the director didn't have some questions about who was actually buying and appreciating the work. At one point someone, perhaps Castelli, talks about the competitive aspect of collecting, where one rich person wants to keep up with another rich collector. And thus art stars are born. Though they are talented, perhaps even great artists, they're also part of something that is driven by the egos of certain rich collectors.</p><p>So I've thoroughly enjoyed the film. But it also makes me think about how hard it was for me to go into 'wildlife art.' It must represent everything that Stella was trying to get rid of at the time. It's still pretty much not taken seriously by galleries other than those that specialize in it.</p><p>But one thing I've realized over the years and that this film inadvertently affirms is that the art world is thoroughly affected by fashion. What is popular, what is new, what is obviously the next step in the development of art, really isn't. Fads and trends come and go. You might have a harder time selling something that isn't currently fashionable, or you might not get it into the most prestigious galleries but it is still art and it might very well be far better art than that that is in the galleries. There is a lot of fiction in the art world, especially the art world of rich collectors.</p><p>In revisiting my theoretical past as an artist, so to speak, it's been enlightening. It was a hard decision to go from large abstract paintings to much smaller art based on nature and wildlife. But I've never regretted it. It seems foolish to me now to want to exclude the outside world, especially the natural world, from my art. But I'm still affected by the tastes I had so many years ago. It's still hard for me to allow much if any atmospheric space in my work. I still like it to be somewhat flat, somewhat like the work of Stuart Davis in coming out at the viewer rather than receding into space. I won't go on about this. But it has been interesting to revisit the art that was so important to me at one time.</p><p>And I'm sure it still has had some affect on my newest painting, the three chipping sparrows at top.</p><p><br /></p><p> </p>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-20749382675704775752020-10-22T16:24:00.000-04:002020-10-22T16:24:08.867-04:00Some Thoughts on Art and Birds<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XRpSFMTzLdY/X5HbJr7PzzI/AAAAAAAAIBU/jILSAFTnCsgItKUzcjuDDcTvvohj_oNswCNcBGAsYHQ/s1038/blueHeadedVireoURRPSketches1620331.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1038" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XRpSFMTzLdY/X5HbJr7PzzI/AAAAAAAAIBU/jILSAFTnCsgItKUzcjuDDcTvvohj_oNswCNcBGAsYHQ/w247-h320/blueHeadedVireoURRPSketches1620331.jpg" title="Pencil Sketches of Blue-headed Vireo" width="247" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil Sketches of Blue-headed Vireo. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7IlJFsw059o/X5HbJpqJDHI/AAAAAAAAIBM/1mueSq9dZdIK68sLy5clQK0qnx1ROu2YACNcBGAsYHQ/s1230/greatBlueHeronMorrisSumiFS1610853.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1230" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7IlJFsw059o/X5HbJpqJDHI/AAAAAAAAIBM/1mueSq9dZdIK68sLy5clQK0qnx1ROu2YACNcBGAsYHQ/w208-h320/greatBlueHeronMorrisSumiFS1610853.jpg" title="Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketch of Great Blue Heron" width="208" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketches of Great Blue Heron. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-apZlZqJM4gI/X5HbJnfJlDI/AAAAAAAAIBQ/6iW5xHZlYLAOPiBJqNe9Us-qmd1-2_yVgCNcBGAsYHQ/s800/greatBlueHeronMorrisSumiFS1610858.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="643" data-original-width="800" height="257" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-apZlZqJM4gI/X5HbJnfJlDI/AAAAAAAAIBQ/6iW5xHZlYLAOPiBJqNe9Us-qmd1-2_yVgCNcBGAsYHQ/w320-h257/greatBlueHeronMorrisSumiFS1610858.jpg" title="Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketch of Great Blue Heron" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketches of Great Blue Heron. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BSAZE5bRfBg/X5HbKP9c7xI/AAAAAAAAIBY/ULlmyOhgXiUBUVgZeP_I9Pq0vK2LIjSugCNcBGAsYHQ/s800/wilsonsSnipeDixonMeadowSumiFS1610860.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="492" data-original-width="800" height="197" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BSAZE5bRfBg/X5HbKP9c7xI/AAAAAAAAIBY/ULlmyOhgXiUBUVgZeP_I9Pq0vK2LIjSugCNcBGAsYHQ/w320-h197/wilsonsSnipeDixonMeadowSumiFS1610860.jpg" title="Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketch of Wilson's Snipe" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketches of Wilson's Snipe. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qbgnk0wzEKM/X5HbKfwqS-I/AAAAAAAAIBc/pLoY6Q_K3MsUd-DnLfCfJNsKp21G8HHhACNcBGAsYHQ/s800/wilsonsSnipeDixonMeadowSumiFS1610861.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="800" height="207" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qbgnk0wzEKM/X5HbKfwqS-I/AAAAAAAAIBc/pLoY6Q_K3MsUd-DnLfCfJNsKp21G8HHhACNcBGAsYHQ/w320-h207/wilsonsSnipeDixonMeadowSumiFS1610861.jpg" title="Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketch of Wilson's Snipe" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketches of Wilson's Snipe. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XfqPf_o5vX0/X5HbK07uWoI/AAAAAAAAIBg/_qpk3hP7TrkWGaS6WQsiWWNWdAKBb9jqwCNcBGAsYHQ/s800/wilsonsSnipeSASPPAWADixonSumiFS1610856.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="615" data-original-width="800" height="246" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XfqPf_o5vX0/X5HbK07uWoI/AAAAAAAAIBg/_qpk3hP7TrkWGaS6WQsiWWNWdAKBb9jqwCNcBGAsYHQ/w320-h246/wilsonsSnipeSASPPAWADixonSumiFS1610856.jpg" title="Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketch of Wilson's Snipe" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sumi Brush Pen Field Sketches of Wilson's Snipe. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BD5hiqjkb_c/X5HbLMnQHZI/AAAAAAAAIBk/JNBYwfLGQ9gVE7dGT1oH020vLjMWq4RigCNcBGAsYHQ/s1060/yellowRumpedWarblerURRPSketches1620329.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1060" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BD5hiqjkb_c/X5HbLMnQHZI/AAAAAAAAIBk/JNBYwfLGQ9gVE7dGT1oH020vLjMWq4RigCNcBGAsYHQ/w242-h320/yellowRumpedWarblerURRPSketches1620329.jpg" title="Pencil Sketches of Yellow-rumped Warbler" width="242" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil Sketches of Yellow-rumped Warblers. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: left;">I've been thinking about writing about the annual exhibit of The Society of Wildlife Artist's, 'The Natural Eye,' for some time now. Since I've participated in it many times but am not a member I don't feel right about writing about it. On the other hand it's the one exhibit I spend a lot of effort trying to get into each year because I like the work so much. As I've said many times it's thrilling to see my work with the work of so many artists whom I admire. Though I have to say, until I and Jerene actually went to the show in London the excitement was still somewhat tempered. It's one thing to admire work online. It's quite another to be standing in front of, and surrounded by it.</p><p style="text-align: left;">I've been in a lot of shows, both group and solo, though far fewer of the latter than the former. These were almost all when I did abstract work. Once I switched to representational art, I think about 2006, I didn't really try to get into many group shows, and with the exception of 'The Natural Eye' and group shows at a local art center I belonged to I didn't get into any competitive juried shows I did apply for. I'm pretty sure why. Wildlife art is not considered serious art in the US. I feel confident saying that. Though I'm not Robert Bateman's biggest fan, the fact that, unless things have changed recently, he's never been shown in a major Canadian museum says a lot. With the possible exception of Carl Rungius I'm not sure how many major American museums have ever shown any wildlife art. I suppose some fishing scenes from Winslow Homer, a John Singer Sargent alligator and a few others. But in the 20th century and later it's just not considered real art. ( I'm ignoring any possible contemporary artists who use an ironic take on wildlife art and therefore might possibly be shown, because irony in itself discounts the subject it portrays).</p><p style="text-align: left;">I know I'm taking a while to get to the point..... The recent sketches above, some from life, others based on looking into the viewfinder of my camera to sketch from the small images of photos there show I think how far I've come in actually being able to draw birds. Though I'm sure most people will say that they agree with that much more with the pencil sketches from photos than with the sumi brush pen sketches from life. But trust me they are much better than when I started about 15 years ago.</p><p style="text-align: left;">But even if they showed twice or maybe even 10 times as much improvement as they do there would still be a big problem. How do you make a finished work of art out of a sketch? How do you make a painting? How do you make a print? How do you make either a painting or a print as ambitious as the old abstract paintings I used to do? How do you, based on these sketches, do something that both galleries and museums would be willing to show? How do you make art that is taken seriously and not just considered cute?</p><p style="text-align: left;">Just about the first thing I realized when I started drawing and painting birds, outside of how little I actually knew about what they looked like even though I'd birded for at least 20 years at that point, was that they just can't sit by themselves in the middle of a canvas. I could make a portrait like that, and did try to do so, but what was I supposed to put around the bird? Impressionistic marks that might hopefully make it look like they fit in perfectly with the bird to make a final composition? A vignette like fading into nothingness around the bird? Sad to say, I realized that I had to contend with the environment in which they lived. Sad, I say because that meant not only did I have to learn more about drawing and painting birds but I also had to learn more about drawing and painting the various environments in which they lived.</p><p style="text-align: left;">But at the same time I didn't want a lot of stultifying detail, especially something reminiscent of that based on a faithful detailed rendering of a photo. That work did and still does make me very nervous. Though some people can breathe a sense of life into it, perhaps because they actually are familiar with birds and their environment, most artists do not. One of the other things I learned very on is that I didn't at all want my work to look like that! Stultifying! After all the subject was alive, very alive and that was part of the point of even using them as a subject.</p><p style="text-align: left;">So................. that finally brings me to one of my main points. What a complete revelation it was to discover The Society of Wildlife Artists! What exciting art, all based on wildlife! This is a link to the current show, which will open on 10.28.20: <a href="https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/natural-eye-2020" target="_blank">https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/natural-eye-2020</a>. In case it's not evident, I'm fortunate enough to be in it, and have actually pre-sold one of the unframed prints.</p>I'm a bit used to seeing the show now, having exhibited 7-8 times over the last 10 years or so, but it is still very exciting. The link I posted shows much of the work, though of course it is without the context of a gallery so you can't see the size, texture, etc., etc. That just adds to the excitement of the show.<div><br /></div><div>I'm not going to say a whole lot about it. But I mention the problems I had when I started making bird/wildlife art because this show I think is often the answer to those problems. It shows lively art, lively both in terms of the subjects and environment portrayed, but also lively artistically. All of this art could easily be shown in a museum if museums were alert enough to realize its vitality and power.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you look at my sketches above you can see what a far cry they are from most of the work in the show, though some have a similar simplicity. But many artists want to be able to make something more finished or perhaps more ambitous and yet also want to keep it from becoming stultified. I think most people who read this and who also look at the show will see that's there is very little that is stultifying. Particularly as a whole the show is vital, the exact opposite of stultifying.</div><div><br /></div><div>And yet it is also not at all monolithic. There is a great variety of subject matter, media, formal methods and imagination. The name of this blog, actually named before it even was a blog if I recall correctly, is ArtBirdsNature. My idea was that all are equally important and that they can reinforce and bring out the best in each other. That I think is what 'The Natural Eye' does. I wish there was a similar show in the US. I also hope you'll enjoy looking at the work, and perhaps even buying some, in the online gallery.<br /> <p></p></div>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-28691222849233165932020-10-13T09:45:00.001-04:002020-10-13T09:45:07.245-04:00Painting and Finishing, Painting and Finishing<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aS-heLz2xpw/X4WlIQ0n75I/AAAAAAAAIA0/QQ7l-FkUQrk3Sb86u2PlzrTk8BLgZPVKQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1074/blackburnianCanadaBTGNAC1600708.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1074" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aS-heLz2xpw/X4WlIQ0n75I/AAAAAAAAIA0/QQ7l-FkUQrk3Sb86u2PlzrTk8BLgZPVKQCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/blackburnianCanadaBTGNAC1600708.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blackburnian, Canada and Black-throated GreenWarblers. 9x12 inch acrylic painting. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tuHvyVJa1Oc/X4WlIM7uGNI/AAAAAAAAIA4/10svW2ZXC-c-xxfZPBaVsO5rv-O3qYwLACNcBGAsYHQ/s800/savannahSparrowDixonMeadowAC1590278.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="603" data-original-width="800" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tuHvyVJa1Oc/X4WlIM7uGNI/AAAAAAAAIA4/10svW2ZXC-c-xxfZPBaVsO5rv-O3qYwLACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/savannahSparrowDixonMeadowAC1590278.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p>Savannah Sparrow at Dixon Meadow Preserve. 9x12 inch acrylic painting. Copyright 2020 by Ken Januski.</p></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <p></p>
<p>Though I had thought I might have returned to printmaking by now I obviously have not. I think I know why. September and October so far have both been very active with migrating birds. I see them, am stimulated to portray them and/or the experience of seeing them and I have to choose a medium. Which medium seems to offer the most flexibility? Not printmaking, not watercolor, at least for me, but acrylic.</p><p>Most of my artistic background is in painting, either acrylic or oil, where I can make a major change in a nanosecond. It turns out that this is the way I feel like working right now. I want a direct way to make some sort of portrayal of what I've seen.</p><p>But I almost never want a portrait. I realized after almost my first or second bird painting that I didn't like the idea of bird portraits. Yes, there are many handsome, beautiful birds, including all of the ones above. But to portray them to me seems wrong. Too often it makes them seem cute. Nicely posed, painted in understated colors, etc., etc. I occasionally do something like this in a watercolor study, though I wouldn't argue that I do so with any great skill. But they are just studies. They aren't finished paintings and for me aren't even studies for finished paintings. Why? Because they would just look like portraits, like photos from the 19th century of your distant ancestors in photographic studios. Very stiff and unnatural!</p><p>I've never know how to portray them in a way that looks more natural, though this is a lack of both imagination and skill with particular media, e.g. oil, watercolor, printmaking, et al. Acrylic painting allows my imagination to run free. I can keep experimenting and changing until the composition seems right. It's a very direct way to work.</p><p>So that is more or less what the "painting" refers to in the title. I just keep painting trying to find the right way to make a picture of something, in this case birds that I've recently seen.</p><p>There's also the question of "finishing." I've always, and I do think always is correct, disliked paintings with high finish, particularly paintings where you can't even see any brushstrokes. This has been an ideal for some painters for many centuries. And I'm sure I can find some painters, Raphael perhaps, where the high finish doesn't bother me. But often it just is very irritating. Ingres is somewhere in between. I have to admire his work but it does leave me pretty cold. Unfortunately in wildlife art it has been de rigeur for 100s years or more as far as I can tell. And it is wildlife art that it seems most misplaced. For still life, nature morte, it might make more sense. Most of the subjects are no longer alive. Even the fruit has been plucked. But wildlife IS alive. Why paint wildlife that looks like a still life? As I've written about this many times before I won't go on. I'll just say that it is not a type of "finish" I want in my paintings.</p><p>My idea of "finish," is much closer to Matisse's, at least the Matisse who wrote early in his career that in his paintings he wanted everything in its place, where there was nothing extra and everything worked together. I think that idea has probably been prominent in my work for 40-50 years. I wouldn't argue that it's the only way to make art. And I'm sure that for some viewers it can be just as offputting as the high finish of more photographically-minded painters is to me.</p><p>So the other thing I like about painting is that also allows me to get to the type of formal finish much more quickly than any other medium. Both printmaking and watercolor generally require some planning and exclude much change and modification. It's just the nature of those media. If you have a good idea what you want to start with then they can be ideal media. And I do love to the work of others in them. I even like some of my own.</p><p>But right now I'm more interested in both formal finish, ala Matisse, and wildlife art that seems alive and not a portrait, sometimes a stultified portrait. So I continue to work in acrylic, painting and finishing.</p><p>I'm sure there will come a time when I want to translate some of that into prints.</p><p>I had hoped to write more about the upcoming Society of Wildlife Artist's 'The Natural Eye ' show in London. But I think that should be another post. For now you can see, and buy, much of the work at <a href="https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/natural-eye-2020" target="_blank">The Natural Eye 2020</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p>(I'm starting to hate the new Blogger. My html may indeed be invalid as Blogger tells me but I didn't create it, Blogger did. I'm sure that this is of no interest to readers to I'm just going to ignore it. I don't have time to babysit Blogger.)</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-79627233928532630422020-09-23T11:59:00.000-04:002020-09-23T11:59:37.429-04:00Off to London and The Society of Wildlife Artists Annual Show<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LtzhkXtKmD4/X2tu0x-9mlI/AAAAAAAAIAg/q48RLv98O_QOo3EtEZal5Bd-f2AKUbM8wCNcBGAsYHQ/s800/worksInSWLA2020_1580349.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="800" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LtzhkXtKmD4/X2tu0x-9mlI/AAAAAAAAIAg/q48RLv98O_QOo3EtEZal5Bd-f2AKUbM8wCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/worksInSWLA2020_1580349.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two Moku Hanga Prints and One Acrylic Painting About To Be Shipped to the Mall Galleries<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />With the pandemic I assumed that the Mall Galleries in London and the Society of Wildlife Artists would have to call off their annual show. So it was a pleasant surprise to get an email in the summer indicating that the show was on and entries could be submitted.</p><p>I always love this show, though I've only seen it in person once, two years ago. I think my work has been in it between 6 and 8 times. As I'm somewhat rushed today, mainly with trying to get the entries shipped, I'm not going to write much more at the moment. Suffice it to say that it is the one show I am excited about applying for and getting into. Even when I don't get in it's both thrilling and inspiring to see much of the show online.</p><p>But this year three of my works will be in: two moku hanga prints, A Frenzy of Golden-crowned Kinglets and Three Shorebirds; along with an acrylic painting, Common Buckeye and American Lady. The photo shows them just before I get ready to pack them up and send them off.</p><p>More later..................</p><p><br /> </p>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-39968898552514350272020-09-14T10:47:00.001-04:002020-09-14T15:38:31.469-04:00Finishing Damselflies, Returning to Warblers
<p>I've finally finished the Stream Bluets acrylic painting, having let it sit for between 4 and 8 weeks. For me one of my great artistic fears is overworking a painting to the point that it seems lifeless. Sometimes it can take years to sense the lifelessness, possibly because after all the work of the overworking I, and probably many others, hate to admit that it didn't work. So when I started up acrylic painting again early this spring I often left paintings temporarily finished in very early states. I didn't want to overwork them.</p><p>Finally I decided that I was willing to take the chance of overworking on this painting. It's always hard to say when a work of art is done, particularly ones done in such fluid media as oil or acrylic. It's just so easy to make a few more changes. Of course it's never quite that simple. One change leads to another, etc., etc. But in this case I think I've frozen the fluidity at the best place.</p><p>To me it still looks like a painting, one concerned with shape, color, composition, etc. But it also looks like a plausible representation of a real event, damselflies in a frenzy over a stream, with many of them mating and ovipositing. To me it is more realistic than many illustrations that show much more detail. It's a very old debate between painting and illustration. But for me I think it's fairly simple. Illustration always values some sort of representational detail over something both truer to experience and more satisfying artistically, not that there isn't artistically satisfying illustration. I'm going to leave it at that since I've written about this before. The last thing I'd say is that when most people actually see such a scene in front of them I think that they experience it more the way my painting portrays it than the way most illustrations do.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xBtxavw0rWI/X19oHs1qEDI/AAAAAAAAH_8/A8e6mT8A_NsQgrsm3Os3igt3JF0d95VdwCNcBGAsYHQ/s800/streamBluetsInTandemAC1550462.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="592" data-original-width="800" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xBtxavw0rWI/X19oHs1qEDI/AAAAAAAAH_8/A8e6mT8A_NsQgrsm3Os3igt3JF0d95VdwCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/streamBluetsInTandemAC1550462.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stream Bluets at Papermill Run. Acrylic Painting. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<p>
Due to Covid and lockdowns we missed much of spring migration. But now that fall migration has begin and now that I've figured out where I can bird with a fair amount of safety and few crowds I've been doing a fair amount of birding. Fortunately that has resulted in my seeing many migrants including the colorful warblers, even if some of them are not as colorful as in spring.</p><p>As usual it is often quite hard to even SEE them long enough and well enough to identify them, let alone photograph them and in particular sketch them. I think that probably the only way to successfully sketch migrating warblers from life is to find an area where you think that they might remain for more than a few minutes and then concentrate on just one or two species. If you continually are trying to identify each little flurry of movement you see you'll never get any sketching done.</p><p>But for me, especially having missed most of spring migration, it's hard to make that sacrifice. And so I've tried to both identify and photograph them but not sketch them. BUT I don't at all like trying to make art from the photographs I've made of them. I've written about this for years and so I hope I won't rehash too much of what I've already written.</p><p>But I think it is similar to what I just wrote about illustration and damselflies. There is a real danger of too much information. When you know a great deal about insects, birds or whatever you may feel a great need to show all of this knowledge in each piece of art that you make. Perhaps you feel that someone might say, oh he doesn't understand that bird because he left out the dark at the base of the primaries. Many years ago there was an article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal about such art and its audience. Unfortunately it was in praise of it!!!</p><p>Art is a lively, fluid medium that I don't believe should be beholden to reality, not that anyone agrees on just what reality is. But art is one thing, science is another, knowledge is another, etc., etc. To me it is a bit like the male athletes I used to see at the outdoor swimming pool when I was a student at Berkeley. Smaller females would fly by the young male athletes in the swimming lanes, seemingly without effort. The males were all effort, all that strength, but strength directed in the wrong direction, down rather than forward. It was a sight to see. But it's also I think an example of being not using your abilities in the best manner. The males had strength but they used it wrongly. They would have been better off, at least in the pool, forgetting all about it, or at least directing it forward. The same thing happens I think with knowledge in art. It can weigh you down just as much as the strength of those male floppers, I mean swimmers.</p><p>So with all that in mind I wanted to somehow use the warblers I've seen recently as the subject of prints and/or paintings. But I just didn't want to deal with the excess information of a photo. That's when I decided that if I just looked through the small viewfinder of my camera at the photos I took the view would be small enough that I'd have to ignore details and just stick to the basics. So that's what the next four photos are. After I'd sketched them in pencil I added a small bit of watercolor. I particularly chose photos that had the birds in what to me were fairly active positions, i.e. not just sitting there as though posing.</p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eAt_5nM2uWs/X19oFOEJBCI/AAAAAAAAH_o/THPcHx-9_iUnKVT7DNTcQEJNbuJGX3K0gCNcBGAsYHQ/s1042/blackburnianWarblerMorrisSketch1570256.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1042" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eAt_5nM2uWs/X19oFOEJBCI/AAAAAAAAH_o/THPcHx-9_iUnKVT7DNTcQEJNbuJGX3K0gCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/blackburnianWarblerMorrisSketch1570256.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil and watercolor sketch of Blackburnian Warbler. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SegrG7U6m2A/X19oFH0hnLI/AAAAAAAAH_g/Y0I_IRF2iA0kCBiI5lmwolyEYph9Y-6qwCNcBGAsYHQ/s1030/blackThroatedGreenWarblerSCEESketch1570254.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1030" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SegrG7U6m2A/X19oFH0hnLI/AAAAAAAAH_g/Y0I_IRF2iA0kCBiI5lmwolyEYph9Y-6qwCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/blackThroatedGreenWarblerSCEESketch1570254.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil and watercolor sketch of Black-throated Green Warbler. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wIvX6JY4T38/X19oILPNgTI/AAAAAAAAIAA/sh_QV88bcNcl38G5LJK-bSt9o4ekdH-_ACNcBGAsYHQ/s1008/tennesseeWarblerSCEESketch1570252.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1008" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wIvX6JY4T38/X19oILPNgTI/AAAAAAAAIAA/sh_QV88bcNcl38G5LJK-bSt9o4ekdH-_ACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/tennesseeWarblerSCEESketch1570252.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil and watercolor sketch of Tennessee Warbler. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fLlW6rghKf4/X19oGHieBeI/AAAAAAAAH_w/5P2GV0_aW0wqAmKsuoQikNsmAo6iGXiXwCNcBGAsYHQ/s1058/chestnutSidedWarblerHerculesClubSketch1560414.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1058" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fLlW6rghKf4/X19oGHieBeI/AAAAAAAAH_w/5P2GV0_aW0wqAmKsuoQikNsmAo6iGXiXwCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/chestnutSidedWarblerHerculesClubSketch1560414.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil and watercolor sketch of Chestnut-sided Warbler. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<p>
After I'd done those sketches I started making compositional studies where I combined one, two or more of the warblers. At one point I decided I needed a larger warbler in the foreground. For some reason I decided to add a Canada Warbler. But since I haven't seen one recently I used a photo that is more than 10 years old, and one that also served as an early unsuccessful watercolor. After I'd done a few pencil and collage studies I added watercolor to one.</p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J_hWD0nu8Qw/X19oFmg77VI/AAAAAAAAH_s/_j6JJVX_mo8rjyuRv5_Y_XqFNo0ogHfrgCNcBGAsYHQ/s800/canadaBlackburnianBTGPencilTemplate1570258.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J_hWD0nu8Qw/X19oFmg77VI/AAAAAAAAH_s/_j6JJVX_mo8rjyuRv5_Y_XqFNo0ogHfrgCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/canadaBlackburnianBTGPencilTemplate1570258.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil compositional study for warblers. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l3T3n5g7w8g/X19oFCr0deI/AAAAAAAAH_k/AGywfW3LnqIwYalqK9ws4wYvtlackypfACNcBGAsYHQ/s1200/canadaBlackburnianBTGNWCTemplate1570258.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l3T3n5g7w8g/X19oFCr0deI/AAAAAAAAH_k/AGywfW3LnqIwYalqK9ws4wYvtlackypfACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/canadaBlackburnianBTGNWCTemplate1570258.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil and watercolor compositional study for warblers. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<p>I will probably use the color study as the basis of a painting or print. But in the meantime I've continued to bird and so see birds. Yesterday I saw both male and female Black-throated Blue Warblers. After I'd been home for awhile I decided that I'd like to do a small study of the female. This is something I used to do with much more frequency. It's both a celebration of the bird and an educational exercise, trying to get me to look closer and imprint on my memory some of the details of the bird. I'm not sure if the educational goal ever gets achieved. I'm sure I forget much of what I think I'm learning as I make the sketch. Still there is always something rewarding in doing them, assuming that I can stand to look at them once I've done(i.e., they don't always work out).</p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IeK-tFRXpfM/X19oHEgL-5I/AAAAAAAAH_4/sTdcz6YPP9QJ1EHnvu_e3QFNJ6s-5aVVgCNcBGAsYHQ/s800/femaleBlacktThroatedBlueWarblerSCEEWC1570469.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="513" data-original-width="800" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IeK-tFRXpfM/X19oHEgL-5I/AAAAAAAAH_4/sTdcz6YPP9QJ1EHnvu_e3QFNJ6s-5aVVgCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/femaleBlacktThroatedBlueWarblerSCEEWC1570469.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ballpoint pen and watercolor study of female Black-throated Blue Warbler. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<p>(Well the new Blogger continues to create more expletives than blogs. But at this point I can't worry about it and I'm sure my readers don't care either. But I have to say it reminds me of Facebook and its recent changes, made by people who seem to have never used the product.)</p>
<p></p>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-50030135754090421562020-08-16T14:08:00.008-04:002020-08-16T14:18:16.261-04:00Those Insects, That Paintbrush<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M5Tw0zScEY8/Xzlv7ISnstI/AAAAAAAAH_A/aELj9A_k8NsXqn8PVMLnC0bStT_7bI0jQCNcBGAsYHQ/s800/buckeyeLadyAC1540599.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="800" height="382" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M5Tw0zScEY8/Xzlv7ISnstI/AAAAAAAAH_A/aELj9A_k8NsXqn8PVMLnC0bStT_7bI0jQCNcBGAsYHQ/w512-h382/buckeyeLadyAC1540599.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">American Lady and Common Buckeye. 9x12 inch acrylic painting by Ken Januski. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski<br /><br />
<p> </p><div style="text-align: left;">I'm not sure how many months it's been since I stopped printing and started acrylic painting. If I weren't in the middle of using the Blogger interface to write this I'd check. And I actually am a bit curious myself since I think that change occurred some time after Covid-19 stay at home orders.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In any case I keep being tempted to return to print but that temptation is overwritten by the desire to keep painting. At top is a newly finished painting of an American Lady and Common Buckeye. It is based on photographs I took. But as you can probably see I wasn't too limited by that. At least I hope that's the case. Between covid, hot and humid, or just plain rainy weather I've spent little time in 2020 working outside. When I bought a number of pre-stretched canvases to paint on I actually envisioned working on some in our backyard. It's almost September and no such luck so far.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Because I've felt a great degree of freedom in returning to paint, and painting in acrylic I've been very tempted to move from birds to insects, just to see if a bit of freedom with them might also make for results I like. That is certainly true with the American Lady painting. I'm quite happy with it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The Stream Blue painting was begun over and month ago, and stopped soon after, as I mentioned in my last post. I had some freshness in it and I wanted to keep it, regardless of what detail I might be losing. One thing about damselflies is that they are very small, and their primary shape, that of a toothpick, is hard to get all that excited about. It's also hard to get very painterly with. 'Hmm, which way shall I flourish the brush on this toothpick?' But after finishing the American Lady painting I decided that I wanted to see what I could do with adding some detail(which is about the only way to identify dragonflies, especially damselflies) while still keeping it a painting, not an illustration.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Below are the results so far. I should add that there was a flurry of damselflies here when I saw them, mainly a large collection of males pouncing on the few females who arrived at Papermill Run. You almost need binoculars to even notice the frenzied behavior. Without them you might think that you're just looking a calm, almost bucolic stream. I wanted to get that sense of frenzied activity in as well. For me that means that there is just going to have to be some abbreviation in the painting. Painting every single pair along with all the solo males in detail might show a lot of detail but it certainly wasn't going to represent the experience of seeing this.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So this is my attempt so far. I'm not sure how much further I'll go. I have added more detail on the two primary damselflies but I'm reluctant to do much more.</div><p></p></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yA2YIpuU08M/Xzlv7OYWG0I/AAAAAAAAH_E/BOuhNE-MQV412p_qYotUDrRnm6s9_W7sQCNcBGAsYHQ/s800/streamBluetsInTandemAC1540721.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="800" height="381" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yA2YIpuU08M/Xzlv7OYWG0I/AAAAAAAAH_E/BOuhNE-MQV412p_qYotUDrRnm6s9_W7sQCNcBGAsYHQ/w512-h381/streamBluetsInTandemAC1540721.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stream Bluets at Papermill Run. 9x12 inch acrylic painting in progress by Ken Januski. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">
<p> One additional thing I've been thinking about as I look at my old prints and think about new ones is that printmaking is mainly about lines and edges. Not being a printmaker or having much training in it I'm sure more experienced printmakers will say: what about lithography, what about this or that? I think it is true that lithography comes close to painting and certainly gets away from line. If I had a printmaking studio with all the equipment for printing lithos I'd probably give it a try. I don't. The fact is that most of my printmaking, especially moku hanga, is primarily linear.</p></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There's nothing wrong with that. And I'm certainly happy with what I've done. But as I go along painting insects and birds as I'm currently doing I can't begin to see how I can translate them into prints or moku hanga in particular.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But I've never worried about such things. Go with the artistic flow, and be thankful if you have one! For now it's Those Insects and That Paintbrush.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I just looked at this outside of Blogger. It looks like crap. Thank you Google and Blogger. I'm sorry but I don't have time at the moment to go back and try to fix all the bad HTML that the new Blogger interface so kindly forced me into using.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></td></tr></tbody></table> <p></p>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618025896103645633.post-5374566045777309842020-07-07T11:36:00.001-04:002020-07-07T11:48:10.717-04:00"You Must Execute Freely"
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B2OX07vY_as/XwSPyUM47DI/AAAAAAAAH9g/WVmeHUMuolc-4SB9BPMFWJGA_plKutGEwCK4BGAsYHg/s800/streamBluetsPapermillRunAC1530448.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="598" data-original-width="800" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B2OX07vY_as/XwSPyUM47DI/AAAAAAAAH9g/WVmeHUMuolc-4SB9BPMFWJGA_plKutGEwCK4BGAsYHg/s320/streamBluetsPapermillRunAC1530448.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stream Bluets at Papermill Run. Acrylic painting in progress. 9x12 inches. Copyright 2020 Ken Januski<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div>
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<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><blockquote> <i> 12 May. One finds that one never has enough learning. The drawings of Ingres -- Decamp's bottles of fat oil and clear oil -- Not one false note in the work of men feeling -- Before you begin, study unceasingly, but once started , make mistakes if you must but you must execute freely.</i> The Journal of Eugene Delacroix by Eugene Delacroix, edited by Hubert Wellington, Phaidon.</blockquote><div><br /></div><div> </div></div>
I'm finding more and more with my acrylic paintings that I don't want to go very far with them. The fear of overwork and too much detail/finish/polish is almost overwhelming. I've always been this way but it seems particularly true with my new acrylic paintings. Because of this I did a quick scan of some of my handwritten notes on 'The Journal of Eugene Delacroix,' for me the most engaging work I've ever read by a visual artist. I knew he'd written a lot about the danger of finish and detail.<div><br /></div><div>The quote above is apt for this painting, not in the sense that I've studied damselflies and streams "unceasingly," but certainly in the sense that I want to "execute freely." I don't want stultifying brushwork and a painting that feels like all life has been smothered from it. I thought that I'd try to make some minor changes to this painting but having reread this Delacroix quote I'm more tempted to just stop. I want the execution to continue to look free.</div><div><br /></div><div>But I was also looking for another Delacroix quote, one in which he says studies and such are fine but that at artist doesn't really test himself without doing something more ambitious and more finished. I didn't like the quote when I read, and probably re-read it, years ago but I always worry that it might be true. One of these days I'll probably find it and post it. But for now this quote seems perfect for this painting. And "high finish" is something I just can't do!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Ken Januskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984782169460110520noreply@blogger.com0