Carving Is the Easy Part

It's certainly not true of every block I've carved, but carving was the easiest part of this one. Everything I've carved away here will remain white, so the pigment I put on this block will define the background of the piece. I plan to continue experimenting with stencils, since I had such a good time working with a stencil on my last print.

I thought I'd have some free time for woodblock printing in the coming week, but a bunch of illustration work came in over the weekend, so it looks like I'll have to wait even longer before I can get rolling on this print. Balancing my moku hanga pursuits and my illustration work is difficult. Moku hanga necessarily takes a back seat to my paying jobs, but it's hard to keep setting aside the creative energy that gets stirred up every time I start to work on my prints. I feel like I have a huge backlog of ideas and enthusiasm for my prints. Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to contain a tidal wave. I have 4 or 5 additional concepts for this series as well as a vision for another big series, and I'm chomping at the bit to keep the momentum going.

One interesting thing that's happening, though, is that I'm seeing a cross-pollination between my illustration and my printmaking. Last week I completed a job for This Old House magazine and it had a hummingbird in it as well as water falling in a way very reminiscent of the vertical lines in this rope. I wish I could post the illustration for you to see, but because it's for their March issue and because I've licensed "first North American publication rights" to them, I can't publish it until after they do.