« Weekend update ... | Front Page | Ishikawa-san gets going ... »
Yoshida sailing ship - proof batch done ...
Posted by Dave Bull on May 28, 2012 [Permalink]
Tsushima-san was here for a short time today, to continue her proofing work on the Yoshida design, and even though it was a pretty chaotic day here, she managed to get a few sheets 'completed'.
Completed is in quotes there, because we certainly aren't going to call this one 'ready' yet. This impression is still actually quite rough (look at the irregular gradation on the distant sky, for example), and both of us know that the tonal balances can be considerably improved.
But it's a place to start, for sure!
A few weeks ago when I first introduced this project, I explained how I had carved my block set based on the image Yoshida-san included in his instruction book 'Japanese Woodblock Printmaking', published in 1939, and when I printed my edition I also closely followed his original version. But for this new version, Tsushima-san and I have decided to cut ourselves loose from the original. She is still following the basic concept he laid down - the ship passing in front of a bright reflection on the water - but she wants to give it much more saturation to make the light brighter.
For comparison, here is the print I made back in 2000 - as I said, closely modelled on Yoshida's original:
Tsushima-san has certainly pulled up the brightness on the sea, but we have lost much of the presence of the surface of the water ... in the foreground, for example. And her ship needs to be much more silhouetted I think - there is too much light on the 'near' side of the ship and sails.
So we're certainly not calling this 'done' yet; and tomorrow she'll be back at it, working to find the proper combination of tones. It's astonishingly difficult work, as the colours change after the paper is dried, so to some extend you are working 'blind', as it were.
But in the meantime, I think I might begin to get the catalogue page ready, because although she's not there yet, I think there is no doubt that this one is indeed going to 'make the grade' ...
Added by: Marc Kahn on May 29, 2012, 1:03 am
I'm having a little trouble reading/conceptualizing this image. Specifically, where is the light source? To make the centered intense background light, it seems that the sun should be visible in the frame, close to the horizon. Perhaps it is just out of the frame, but centered above? If so, the centered light intensity would be more dispersed and the gradient at the top of the frame getting darker as you look up doesn't make sense.
I'm not sure what Yoshida-san was thinking when he designed this one.
Added by: Dave on May 29, 2012, 1:24 am
where is the light source ...
It would make a lot more sense if the sails had no gap in the middle wouldn't it! Then we would assume the sun was hidden behind them ...
But he subtitled his original version '... in the Afternoon', so I assume we are expected to feel that the sun is up there out of the frame somewhere, and we are seeing the boat against the bright sea directly below it.
For readers who aren't familiar with Yoshida's original version, it is described on this page.
Add Your Input
