« Hilo Bay [4] - block planning | Front Page | Hilo Bay [6] - colour separations »
Hilo Bay [5] - more block planning
Posted by Dave Bull on March 26, 2006 [Permalink]
Continued from Hilo Bay [4] | Starting point of the thread is here
Had some time this evening to work on the Hilo Bay colour planning ...
With the basic colour separations done, the next step is to determine the actual layout of the blocks. I printed up a pile of greyscale miniatures of the design, to use as 'scratch' worksheets, and on these I roughed-in the colour zones that I worked out earlier.
This is a very awkward design for block layout, as all the detailed areas are concentrated in one place: the horizontal center strip of the design. This means that it is difficult to combine multiple colour areas on one piece of wood, and the block count thus goes up and up ...
After the blocks are carved I'll be scanning them, so at that time you'll be able to see the exact way that I have laid these out, but if you click to bring up the larger version of the image, you can perhaps see a few of the combinations. One of the sea areas combines with the sky block, the cartouche backgrounds combine with vegetation blocks, etc. etc. But there aren't many combinations available.
There is another way to help avoid wood wastage, and that is to place more than one of these sheets on a single block, either by turning one of them upside down, or moving the registration marks to a different orientation. I've been able to identify a few pairs that can be handled this way (again, the block scans to come later will show more clearly what I mean ...).
The thread continues in Hilo Bay [6] ...
Added by: Marc on March 27, 2006, 4:23 am
Dave,
Thank you for allowing us to observe the preliminary discussions / processes which ultimately lead to a woodblock print. There are so many steps involved, each one warranting much consideration of the options. Each decision that is made has a significant effect in the final product. The collaborative nature of the effort with each party having their own context and priorities is another source of interest.
As a hanga collector, I've always been curious about the processes of producing these works. For shin-hanga, there are many historical gaps which can only be filled in with imagination, inference and deductions. Documentation of your current procedures will be, I think, a valuable resource for future collectors.
Marc
Added by: Dave on March 27, 2006, 8:15 am
Yes, no doubt that if we keep things up this way, it will turn into quite a useful and interesting resource.
This particular print though, isn't really such a typical example for demonstrating how shin-hanga prints were made. Gary has given us a 'finished product' essentially, so the process is going to be quite 'mechanical'. It's actually much closer to a typical ukiyo-e print, where the colour areas and overlaps are pretty much visible from the start.
It's with designs that require far more complex levels of overprinting and 'toning' that we'll see the process start to get really interesting.
One of the biggest unanswered questions for me when thinking about the shin-hanga days is that of: who did what, in that process of turning the original design into a print?
I have a video here (produced by the Watanabe people back in the late 50's) that purports to show Hasui making all the decisions about colour blocks (how they should breakdown, just where they should overlap, etc. etc.) without any input from either carver or printer, who are relegated to sitting in their rooms waiting for the 'master' to present them with their work. But I'm sorry, I don't 'buy it'.
Producing a good design is one thing, knowing just how to layout a set of blocks to turn it into a print is a whole different set of skills I think, and a pre-requisite for that part of the work is simple: a lot of hours spent at the printing bench. I honestly don't see how it can be done by the designer (nor by the carver, either).
Add Your Input
