This cool 16-minute instructional video from 1968 came through my Google alerts this morning via Crosseyed Cyclops. It shows woodblock artist Lowell Naeve (American, born 1917) developing a multi-colored print from start to finish. Naeve prints western style in that he uses oil-based inks, but he hand burnishes with a wooden rice paddle, mixes his own pigments and uses Japanese paper.
There isn't a lot of info about Naeve online, but apparently he lived in Vermont. Some discussion about him can be found on this page of the Just Seeds blog.
10 comments:
Great video! Thanks for sharing.
So glad I stumbled upon your blog. I was actually searching for another link to Keiji's work for a blog post. Although I work mainly in collage I took a number of classes with him. Very inspirational. I enjoyed your site and your work and will be sure to visit again.
Sweet, not sure why it was so spell binding, I thought 16 minutes would drag......
Finally found 1 min. all to myself to watch the film. Thanks for sharing - I'm not sure what he got out of all those muddy colors, but guess that was his thing ;-) Also, noticed that woodcutting just comes naturally to a man - isn't that nice? Apparently we women have to work harder at it? LOL
Sharri, I too really noticed that line about woodcutting coming naturally to a man. Made me laugh. The whole thing is very dated, but there's something about the datedness -- the languid jazzy music, the intonation of the voiceover, the sepia coloring, even the line down the middle of the film -- it all calls back my early childhood in a soothing sort of way. Plus I was really interested in his technique. As it did for d.moll, the 16 minutes flew by for me.
Hi Amanda, glad you enjoyed it! And nice to meet you Bill.
Another Amanda here (the one from Aust). I watched with rapt attention too, but I'm a bit worried about his H&S practices with those pigments ...I guess being "a man" he doesn't have to worry about sissy things like that.
very instructive and wonderful with a film from 1968 ( I was 6 years old)....I really apreciated seeing this , Annie....and especially seeing how he make the cuts are useful....and the way he uses the printed sheets for making the next woodblock...I wasn´t aware of cutting was done only using the knife...thought you needed something to hammer the cutting tools ( knifes)...!
So I´m happy watching all these things on this video, so thanks for showing it....
Tempted to change my name to Whittling Woman just to stake a claim to what was certainly Secret Men's Business. He's lovely though.
Thank you for posting this.
Astonishing. Made me breathe more slowly . . .
Wow... I LOVED that. Thanks so much for sharing. I was trying to think about what I might have been doing in 1968 while he was carving and filming his work in the quiet of the Vermont woods. Excellent video.
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