Starting My Third Year of Moku Hanga Prints

Purple Finch and Hairy Woodpecker. Moku Hanga print by Ken Januski. Edition not complete as of 02.10.19 but it will be between 20 and 25. Printed on Echizen Kozo paper.

The title is true and accurate but it's possibly misleading. I did make my first moku hanga print at the beginning of 2017. I did that largely because I'd seen the prints of one wildlife artist in particular who used and still uses moku hanga to make brilliantly colored, quite creative prints. His colors in particular seemed to offer something richer than what I was getting in my previous linocuts and woodcuts. I'm not naming names here, more for privacy reasons than anything else, of that artist or of another family that was also instrumental in my deciding to try moku hanga. The family bought a large number of my works in late 2016 and it was the proceeds of those sales which helped to fund most of my early moku hanga supplies. So I first should say thanks to both the artist and the family. If you read this I imagine you will know who you are.

Back to why the title might be misleading though. The fact is that the print at top of this post is only my sixth moku hanga print!! What can I say? As soon as I tried my first moku hanga print I loved the possibilities that I was now seeing first  hand. On the other hand when I made that first print technical difficulties required me to yell out to my wife that I'd have to skip lunch and then as the day went on I had to yell out again and ask if we could delay supper.

Everything went wrong!! The paper was too wet or too dry. I had all sorts of splotches in my print rather than the smooth, rich, even color I was expecting. My fingers got  paint on them and they went onto the paper. I can't even remember everything that went wrong. I do know that the prints  did not look as similar to one another as I would have liked(that is an understatement!!).

But still the possibilities were obvious. In other words I was hooked. I haven't done any other types of printmaking since then. But given all the problems I encountered I knew that I would have to modify what I did in moku hanga to some extent. For  one thing I wasn't going to be able to carve small outlines around every shape. If I'd taken a course I might have learned this right off. But I learned everything from books and trial and error.

Anyone who does moku hanga printmaking I think will tell you how complicated  it can be. There are so many variables, so many things to learn, and such a rich tradition to contend with. To make a long story short I had to learn how to approach moku hanga in a way that made sense for me.

It's also true that after an initial start in printmaking of just using anything as a subject I've gotten more and more ambitious.  I want my prints to some extent to be the same as paintings, just done as multiples. So I wanted ambitous prints, but using a medium in which I was a rank beginner.

The end result is that it takes me a long time before I decided to actually make a new print. I may spend months toying around with various possibilities. So.................. that is why I say that this is my third year of making moku hanga prints. It's 100 percent true. I just haven't done many during that time.

I think that the first print in which I haven't felt the need to tear my hair out as I printed the edition is  this one of  a female Purple Finch and male Hairy Woodpecker. I had few if any problems in the first edition of 20 on Nishinouchi paper.  Well major problems I should say. There were some minor problems, like ink coverage. But the new, as yet unfinished edition on Echizen Kozo, printed at top seemed to have fewer problems with ink coverage. Until the paper seemed to pull off the page as I printed additonal prints!! I  think that problem is resolving itself and so all in all this will be a second edition of about 20, with, I hope, better ink coverage.

Printing the Purple Finch has been the first time that I've largely liked the process. I'm not screaming and tearing out my hair as I print part of the edition each day. And I'm quite happy with the results.

So as I start my third year of moku hanga I have to say it seems the perfect medium for  me as a printmaker. I don't need to use toxic chemicals. I don't need a printing press. I don't need a lot of room. I do all my printing in my very small studio(once a bedroom). I think all artists hope for the day when their tools  become an extension of  their  hands. That is now the case with me and moku hanga. There are still a million ways I'm sure in which the technique can become better and more predictable. But it is predictable enough right now. I feel very fortunate to have stumbled into moku hanga.

I should add that this print was based on an actual scene at The Wissahickon Environmental Center in late 2018. It is based on sketches and photos I made on a very misty, foggy day. I've tried to keep some of that sense in the print.

Sketching and Beautiful Weather

Young Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers with Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Ballpoint Pen Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

We've seen beautiful late September weather here the last few days. But wait, it's only late July! I read recently that this may presage another long and brutal winter like last year's. If so we may regret this weather then but for now there's nothing to do but revel in it. And because of that I've found that each day I tell myself I have to be outside sketching rather than in the studio working on that woodcut that I started a few days ago.

Above is the work from today. On the left an immature Hairy Woodpecker with a Downy Woodpecker beneath him. The Downy was almost all white from this perspective with just a bit of black around eye and on underside of tail. The lack of black, esp. around eye made me think he also was an immature.

I've continued to spend a lot of time watching the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds that have been visiting our backyard. On the right side above are three drawings from today, the smallest of which was done from memory after he hovered two feet away from me for a few seconds. All too soon the hummingbirds will be gone so I'm really trying to take advantage of them while they're here. Oh yes, the bill of the hummingbird on lower left looks a bit odd because he's sticking out his tongue! I love being able to get such seemingly unusual behavior down in a sketchbook though I doubt that it's really all that unusual.

Eastern Kingbird, Question Mark Butterfly and Great Blue Heron in Field. Ballpoint Pen Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

The drawings above were done at Morris Arboretum, though I think on different days. The Eastern Kingbird didn't stay for long so there's a lot of memory used in this drawing. Beneath him a Red Admiral that stayed for a few seconds, though not enough for me to get everything down. On the right one of three immature Great Blue Herons that were at Morris yesterday. I got a kick out of this one in the field. He was sketched live and some of the landscape was done at the same time. The rest of the landscape was improvised over the last 24 hours.

Before I move on to the delayed Green Heron woodcut I wanted to mention John Busby. After I posted the last post I realized that John Busby's most recent book, Looking at Birds: An Antidote to Field Guides, is the perfect book to encourage drawing encounters with birds, even if you just get the briefest of sketches. As I googled for the exact title of the book just now I ran across a video of John Busby sketching on the web site of author and artist John Muir Laws. When I posted this yesterday I hadn't yet had time to watch the full 24 minutes of the video. But today, a day later, I have. It is spectacular. About minute 15 or 16 he sits amid hundreds of gannets and mentions how he could never do a glorified portrait of one of them, in spite of their beauty. Take a look at most bird art shows and catalogs and that's all you'll see - glorified portraits, made possible only through photography. John Busby is interested in the full experience of seeing the birds and not just the birds but the birds in their environment. Towards the end he says that he thinks his goal might be for the viewer to wish he'd been there. And in that he succeeds. A far, far more lofty and worthwhile goal than all those deadly glorified portraits!!  And who knows what else you might find of interest on Laws' site.

Crouching Green Heron. Second Proof of Woodcut by Ken Januski.

Okay, back to the woodcut. I've done some minimal cleanup in the heron woodcut. I've also copied this onto a second block so that I can use at least one more color if I feel like it. Time will tell. I want to keep this pretty simple. I was really only trying to catch the striking pose. But once I printed it the pattern of the wood came out in the background and now I'm tempted to keep it, which of course is threatening to send the woodcut off in a different direction. I hope it rains soon so I can figure out what to do.

Early Fall Field Sketches

When you see as many birds as I do, mainly because I'm lucky enough to be able to get outside often, you might ask how I choose what to sketch? One of the first questions I think I ask myself is how long I think the bird might stay in its current position? Is it even worth trying to sketch or will it likely be gone before I even open my sketchbook and get my pen ready, just as a wood warbler might? This is always a combination of gut feeling, sense of adventurousness or caution at that very moment, desire to portray an unusual bird, etc.

In the page of sketches above, which actually took a full two weeks to do there were a number of motivations. With the male Black-throated Blue Warbler and the Solitary Vireo on left page it was just the desire to get these birds down on paper. Even while I was sketching the Black-throated Blue I couldn' t remember what part of the face was black and what blue on the bird I'd seen less than 30 seconds previously. There is so much to try to take in and remember when you know the bird may  be gone in a split second. Similar questions arose for the vireo.

Woodpeckers I've found have different bills from one species to the next. One lower mandible may go out from the head in a more horizontal direction and less of an angle than that of another species. So  I'll often try  to sketch a familiar bird just so  I get a better idea of just  how the bill is situated. That's the case with the Hairy Woodpecker on left and Northern Flicker on right here It's all just a learning process, storing up knowledge, made through both success and failure, so that when I do something more developed I'll have the confidence that I'm being true to the bird.

I can't stand overly detailed work, like that which attempts to get every single feather in  the right place. But I also don't want to have the general sense of the bird wrong. For me, unlike for the buyers of much wildlife art, accuracy is not paramount. But it is a bonus. Artistic qualities always come first.

This has always been an odd part of 'wildlife art.' Is is art or science? For me it is always art, but I'd prefer to also know the science  involved.

I never seem to get Belted Kingfishers right. I'm always a bit disappointed. And  sometimes I'm completely thrown by the bill. Is it thick or thin, short or long? It seems to change by individual bird and my viewpoint. In this case the bill seemed particularly long and thick. So that's how I've portrayed it, even though I have many other sketches, and photos, where it s eemed thinner and shorter. I suppose that's one of the exciting parts of field sketching: things are never quite as simple and pat as you might expect.

Last bird here is a House Sparrrow at lower right and a Broad-winged Hawk at lower left. Such a hawk doesn't have a tail that is dark just on the  sides. It has bands of light and dark. And yet that's what I saw so I put it down. I've done this with other birds where what I saw made no sense and didn't match my knowledge of the bird. Since it's an unsual situation though to me it makes sense to just put down what I saw. After the fact I can double check with guidebooks to see if I can make sense of what caused me to see what I thought I did. At times like this I guess I'm showing more of my scientific side than my artistic.

People often think that science and art are opposed. But my guess is that many knowledgeable artists and scientists know that the opposite is the case.

Local Bird Activity

With the weather back down to the 70s from the mid-80s it's the perfect time to be outside. So I and my wife couldn't resist checking out some of our local birding spots, most within a mile of our home. The proximity and variety of good birding areas is always somewhat shocking to me given that we live in Philadelphia, one of the largest cities in the U.S.
In any case yesterday we walked along the Manayunk Canal, just down the hill from where we live. The biggest surprise were two Spotted Sandpipers, one of which is at top of sketch above. Though Green Herons are common here I think the one pictured above is the first we've seen in Philadelphia this year. Yellow Warblers as well as Baltimore Orioles are both common at the canal. But the striking yellow of one, and orange and black of the other are always a great pleasure to see, exhibiting the celebratory colors of summer.
As you can imagine, and as I've written over the years, I always want to portray some of that beauty and my reaction to it. I used to feel I needed the camera to capture this, and then I could get some faint semblance in art based on the photo. But now I'm much more likely to draw what I see even when the bird is long gone. That's what I've done above. I'm getting much more to trust myself, so will spend a short time looking at bird, then try to sketch it, often not looking up for a minute or two. If the bird is still there then great, I can confirm what I've put down and try to refine it. But if not at least I've gotten something. At home I'll compare it to photos I have.
The most surprising thing about these sketches is that I didn't do the Baltimore Oriole until I got home. The page looked empty, I'd wanted to sketch one of the orioles we'd seen but didn't have time, even though I had noted certain aspects of it that I often seem to get wrong in drawing it. In any case I added this sketch about 5 hours after seeing the bird.
I'm sure that this can be overdone, relying too much on generalizations and not enough on actual looking. But I've always had the opposite problem, looking too much and only getting an unrecognizable line or two down. On top of that I never had a general impression of the bird which could help me flesh out the sketch. So I'm happy with my growing ability to generalize. My guess is that all talented field sketchers use a combination of both methods.

I've shown the left hand side of the pages above previously. But I liked all the bird activity shown when I included the left side so I've shown the full two page spread. On left a male Hairy Woodpecker feeding a grub to a youngster. On the right a Yellow-throated Vireo at top. This is a bird we rarely seen and one I hope will remain here to breed. It just calls out to be painted with its yellow throat and spectacles, and white belly but I'm not going to touch the sketch. Perhaps I'll do another based on this that I can then add color to.
Below the vireo is the star of the show, a Northern Mockingbird seen at Houston Meadows. He exhibited behavior I've never seen before, jumping forward on the ground and flashing open his wings. It was fascinating to see and I assume was meant to scare up prey. When we got home I found a number of photos of such behavior in my various guides. One showed something I'd missed here: a real lunge forward with one leg much in front of the other and the torso more horizontal than vertical. It makes me want to get back to the meadows and see if I can study this behavior more. It just calls out for a painting or print.
Almost all of these birds are local breeders, the only possible exception being the Yellow-throated Vireo and Spotted Sandpipers. But as I said in a previous post June and breeding season can be a fascinating time. Most of the migrants have now gone through and only the summer residents remain. But they're a pleasure to see and to portray.

Field Sketches, Old and New

It seems like I don't get that much developed work done during the months of April and May. I'm not sure about June. Because so many new birds are arriving, both migrants and ones that will breed here, there's always a desire to be out in the field, sketching what I see. Above is one of the more interesting sights from the Wissahickon - a male Hairy Woodpecker digging up grubs and giving one to a juvenile. Even though most migrants have passed through there's still a lot of interesting bird behavior to see, much of it family related.

On the same walk where I saw the Hairy Woodpeckers I also stirred up the Carolina Wren above, who wouldn't stop scolding me. I was near an American Robin's nest at th e time but I'm sure he wasn't acting as a cross-species sentinel. Most likely he had one too. There is a competitive edge to much birding as well as an overeagerness to get a bird quickly identified. I don't really like this. It makes it into too much of a sort of shallow game. Check off the bird and be gone, off to check off another one. But many birders also come to love what I've portrayed here, the actual life of birds. The bottom bird in the sketch is a Louisiana Waterthrush. I suspect that he is one of a nesting pair and hope to get more sketches of him and perhaps his family as the months go by.

I never posted all of my Cape May sketches so here are a few more. Above a Whimbrel at bottom, one of the many, many that we saw. Above him an osprey. You'd never guess it but I spent at least 15 minutes on it. He was bringing food back to a nest. But he never stayed long enough for me to to anything other than get a bit more of the face. Since they sometimes will sit stock still this was an unusual and somewhat disappointing situation. I kept hoping I'd end up with a full portrait. It never happened.

One of the more exciting birds, at least for us that we saw in and around Cape May, was a Yellow-breasted Chat. They are often easy to hear but hard to find. This one cooperated by sitting right out in the open on a telephone wire, though only for a brief period. He was really hunched down, perhaps due to the wind, and looked far pudgier than usual. Above him a Worm-eating Warbler drawn from memory a few minutes after seeing him. And finally one of the irresistible American Oysteratchers. They are so fascinatingly odd that I can never resist sketching them if I have the opportuniy.

And finally a Black-crowned Night Heron and Eastern Kingbird also from Cape May. The next time we stop at Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia I'm sure we'll see some more kingbirds. But it's always nice to see and sketch the first of the year.
For me there's rarely anything as exciting as field sketches. They have a raw connection to nature that is so often missing in more developed work. And yet more developed work allows me or any artist to use the more formal aspects of art to create something expressive. I love that as well. But when I first started using birds as subject I really didn't want to just use them as skeletons upon which to hang some abstract mark making and design. I think I've accomplished that. No matter how abstract or expressionistic I might be in my work it is always founded in field work.
I'm not sure that there's much of a market for this type of work but at least I am doing exactly what I want to do. You can't ask for too much more than that. Well maybe winning a prize or two. Speaking of which I just heard that I won't be garnering any honors as a BBC Wildlife Artist of the Year. I was a finalist but did not get further than that. This is disappointing and I'm sure when I see the results I'll question some of the winners. But I also know how high the quality has been for some of the former prize winners. It can be a stiff competition and I'm happy to have been a finalist again this year. I look forward to seeing the actual winners. And to see if any are online friends and acquaintances of mine.

Still Sketching

Garden chores, carpentry chores related to our garden, and a lot of birding and field sketching have argued against any developed work during the last week or two. I don't mind this. During winter I long for warmer weather so that I can actually sketch from life. So that's what I like to do at this time of year. And of course there are always the new arrivals to sketch. That adds some excitement. Above is a field sketch of the first Wood Thrush of 2012. Below it is a poor sketch of an Eastern Screech Owl. In these two instances and almost all the others on pages below I didn't have my scope. So the sketches are done by looking at bird in binoculars and then sketching the bird. It's almost three years since I started field sketching seriously. It is a daunting task. The birds are so often gone before you can put pen or pencil to paper. It seems impossible. And yet when I see field sketches by talented artists I can feel the excitement that they must have had as they drew. Sketches from photos, including my own, leave me cold by comparison. There's just nothing like a good field sketch. I imagine this is related to why I've always preferred Rembrandt's sketches to his paintings. There's an electricity in them that is not found elsewhere.

But it has not been an easy road. The excitement is always there but the results don't always seem to indicate much improvement. This is less so with field sketches done with a spotting scope and birds that tend to sit for more than a split second. And I'm very happy with those. With the sketches done in the manner of this page though I sometimes feel disappointed in my progress. That is starting to change though. I've learned that such sketching requires both mental effort and experience. Once you've gotten certain parts of a bird wrong enough times you start drawing it differently even in field sketches. More I think you learn what you don't know. As I've learned all the things I don't know about constructing a bird on paper I've started to pay more and more attention to those aspects when looking at a bird to sketch it. So even a field sketch that is done in less than 10 seconds may include years of experience and knowledge. I'm starting to feel that with the way I draw woodpeckers, thrushes, wrens, even those troublesome warblers. On the page above are some recent attempts at a Yellow-rumped Warbler, Pileated Woodpecker and Gray Catbird. They still leave much to be desired. But finally I feel that it won't be long before my field sketches show a full and convincing sketch of the birds I see. It is an exciting time.

Above some sketches of a Carolina Wren, all of whom seem to be perched in the open and singing at this time of year, a Red-bellied Woodpecker and a Hairy Woodpecker. I'm starting to feel at home with Carolina Wrens. Woodpeckers are more complicated but I'm starting to pay attention to the different shapes and sizes of their bills, the shapes of their heads, and the patterns on their face and wings. It's a lot to keep track of and generally I can only notice a few things before the bird has flown. But the knowledge is accumulating. I expect that soon my various woodpeckers will actually look like the species they are meant to portray. There is something tremendously exciting about being able to sketch birds as they appear, and disappear, right in front of you. By the way almost all of the credit for my improvement, outside of my actual practice, can be laid at the great examples of field sketching found at the Wildlife Art thread at birdforum.net.