Two Versions of Gray Catbird Woodcut

Gray Catbird with Walnuts. Two Versions State Four of Multi-block Woodcut by Ken Januski.

I realized that my fear of a background that was too dull were coming true the other day so I decided to experiment with a third block for the background. I was already printing on two types of paper, Shin Torinoko and Rives Heavyweight so I decided to also try different background colors on each paper type.

Originally I tried the yellow on proofing paper and I loved it. It seemed to liven up the print without taking away any of its simplicity. But when I added a bit of black to get a greener yellow and in fact got a very toned down green gray I still liked it. They are almost like a summer catbird and an autumn catbird.

The real test will be when I print the first black block on top. The thin lines have broken numerous times so far as have the lines created with wood putty to replace them, also multiple times. So I feel like I'm Kurt Gibson trying to limp into home plate in the World Series many years ago. If I can only hold that black block together long enough to finish the print!!

It will be at least a day before I dare print on top of this since even today the underlying ink was a bit wet. So perhaps it's time for a drawing with a brush break tomorrow. Time will tell.

Another Woodcut Finished

Crouching Green Heron. Two-block Woodcut by Ken Januski.

It's taken a while but I've finally finished the multi-block Crouching Green Heron woodcut above. It is an edition of 10, printed with Daniel Smith water-based inks on Rives Heavyweight paper. The entire print is 7x10 inches and the image alone is 4x6 inches.

It really isn't all that much different from when I last showed it. But I wanted to do something more with the background, especially in the top half of print. I also toyed with the idea of cleaning up some of the chisel marks in front of the heron that picked up various bits of ink.

Then I had a bright idea, something I should know to be wary of. I decided to cut the backside of one of the blocks as a third block. I would cut out the heron and the two horizontal stripes and then print one color over all that was left and then perhaps another on the upper area. Below you see the wo results.

Crouching Green Heron. Abandoned Proof of Two-block Woodcut by Ken Januski.

Crouching Green Heron. Abandoned Proof of Two-block Woodcut by Ken Januski.

As a test I showed one of them to Jerene without telling her that in fact I wasn't going to use this version. I wanted to see if her opinion was similar to mine. I DON'T LIKE IT!, she said. Well neither did I. I suppose with a lot of work it would be possible to get something usable out of it. But I much preferred the earlier version.

So I gave up on the idea of cleaning up the area in front of heron and opted to just concentrate on adding some vibrancy to the top half.  I was able to do that and give just a hint of detail as well. So as far as I'm concerned it worked out well, but not without a very scary detour!

It's not often I complete two woodcuts in a week and my guess is that it will be a long time before it happens again. I'll enjoy it while I can.

Running Out of Room

Deer, Green Heron, Wood Ducks. Linocut on Rives Heavyweight Paper by Ken Januski.
 

I used to run out of room a lot when I was painting large 6'x8' foot abstract paintings. In fact the old ones that I have still eat up a lot of room. When I turned to printmaking though I didn't really anticipate this sort of problem. However I forgot about drying prints. Once they're printed they need to dry. With a edition of 20 or so this can take up some room, especially if they're laid flat rather than hung.

Because of that I haven't been able to print an edition of the deer linocut above and below. I still had all the prints from the Rusty Blackbird and Carolina Wren laying around. They were probably dry but I still had the vague notion of adding a few tidbits of green to the print, just as the sparse vegetation indicated in the actual scene along the Manayunk Canal in Philadelphia last winter.

Finally yesterday I bit the bullet and tried some experimenting. I didn't think I could successfully print the three small areas on either of the original. So I improvised a screen out of a manila folder and cut out the three small areas. Then I printed through that onto the otherwise finished prints. The paper was a bit too thick to work as well as I would have like but basically it got the job done. It is shown at the bottom of this post. It has been very difficult to photograph this print, I think because of all the darks. In any case this photo is pretty close but still not as rich, or as coloristically unified as the actual print.

Deer, Green Heron, Wood Ducks. Linocut on Japanese Paper by Ken Januski.
 

Once it was finally printed I went back to work on the Deer, Green Heron and Wood Ducks lino. The first version printed in an edition of 8 is at top.  It's on Rives Heavyweight paper.

As I was going through my printmaking paper in preparation for it I found some old, unnamed Japanese paper. I have no idea what is is. In any case I decided to try it out in a small edition of 4 using a different color ink. All prints on this page are 9x11 inches with the image itself being 6x8.

I still have the thought of printing this as a color print, most likely reduction but possibly multi-block. I'd like to do more to make the main subjects stand out. But that's for the future. Today I wanted to make sure I had one edition in just one color. Thanks to that old paper I have two.

Rusty Blackbird and Carolina Wren at Manayunk Canal. Combination Linocut/Reduction Linocut by Ken Januski.

Black-throated Green Warbler Lino/Woodcut/Reduction Lino

Black-throated Green Warbler. Linocut/Woodcut/Reduction Linocut by Ken Januski.

It always amazes me how long it takes from start to finish on a small color linocut. In this case it's been almost two weeks, and as with most art the end is the hardest. It's when a small mistake can seem to ruin all the previous work. At the same time the work starts to pull together and you can see the end in sight. That can make it exciting in a good way.

This is the final version of the combination linocut, reduction linocut and woodblock, three different blocks treated somewhat differently. It's a bit subdued for me and it will take awhile for me to decide if I like that.

The final edition is 20, printed by hand with Gamblin oil-based inks on Rives Heavyweight paper. The entire print is 7x9 inches and the image alone is 4x6. It is for sale at my Etsy store listed on the right side of this blog.

One thing I'm happy with is the use of line in the print. I wanted to use the final black block to pull the print together, as well as represent much of the warbler. But I didn't want it to look like an outline, almost like a cartoon. Some people use this well but I knew that I wouldn't. So this is a compromise and an experiment. It's the first time I've used a master block. I'm not sure I'll use it again but I think I will. It does offer some new possibilities.

Finished Edition of Downy Woodpecker and Canada Goose

I don't hang out with printmakers. But I get the feeling that with some, just as in any other specialized field, there can be a real emphasis on technique. If you're making a living printing other people's prints this makes sense. Your customers might be very exacting. But when I look at books on printmaking my eyes often glaze over. They may be technically accomplished but they seem dull to me.

Of course printmaking really is the people's art in the sense that anyone can do it if they use a simple medium like linocut. So I often see prints that I like online. Amateur prints sometimes seem more direct.

In any case this is all to say that I don't have good printmaking technique. But as I've continued half-way through year number two of linocuts I'm beginning to feel more comfortable with some technique. Probably my biggest and most unpleasant surprise as a printmaker was the difficulty in getting a good, clean print when I printed an edition.

By that I mean one where the flat colors were fully inked, without any blooms of missing ink, and yet where lines of white stayed white and didn't fill up with the ink. Too much ink so that the flat areas were fully saturated and then the lines also filled in with ink. Or vice versa.

Then there was the struggle with pressure on the baren, the device used to put pressure on the paper that sat on top of the inked block. Too little pressure and the ink on print was too light. Too much and not only might the incised lines fill in with ink but the paper also might start being pulled apart, one little lint-filled piece at a time.

If I had my own press I wouldn't need to worry about the pressure applied on the baren. But I'd probably have other more complicated problems. So until I have a waiting list to buy my prints I'll stick with hand pressure using a baren.

I often expect the actual printing of an edition to be somewhat grueling. Will the combination of ink, paper and baren work correctly? Will I get a good edition of the size I'd hoped for?

Above is most of the printed edition. I was quite happily surprised when this edition proved to run quite smoothly. I used a fairly new ink, which I haven't used much, Caligo Safe Wash Ink, an oil based ink that can be cleaned with soap and water. I also used a new paper: Rives Heavyweight. I've used Rives BFK in the past but it seems too think and unabsorbent for hand rubbed linos. I've also used Rives Lightweight but sometimes it seemed too light and apt to tear. (Well I'm afraid I was mistaken here. A few days after posting this I needed to organize some prints for a competition. As I did so I had to add the specifics for each. As I did so I realized that most of them were Rives Heavyweight! I'd only recently turned to Lightweight and had completely forgotten the many prints with Heavyweight). And finally I used a new Speedball baren that I received for Christmas rather than the bamboo barens I had been using. I'm not sure what the main factor was but they all worked together beautifully.

In the final analysis the most difficult part was signing them. First I forgot that it was 2012 not 2011. In printmaking an edition is usually labeled in the form of 1/12, meaning print 1 of an edition of 12. I knew that there was a problem when I went to write 13/12 today. Oops the edition was 16, not 12.