12 September 2017

Circular Bokashi

As I mentioned in my last post, making a circular bokashi (color blend) is tough. I don't feel accomplished at it yet, so I don't really have any tips. I can tell you what to watch out for, but not how to do it correctly. Too much water will give you speckles (you can see speckles in the top photo), which isn't necessarily wrong but it's wrong if you're trying to make a bokashi without speckles. On the other hand, not enough water and/or too much rice paste will give you distinct lines between your color shifts (see bottom photo). What's exactly the right amount of water? You've got me.

Here's the printing I did over the weekend.

This photo was taken after two applications of color on Block #4. Hard pressure and not too much paste gave me some nice grain. Too bad it will be covered up with subsequent layers.
And two more applications of color from the 5th block. I still want to heavy up the background to make the glow stronger.
This is a somewhat strange way to build a print, because the pigment is being added to the background rather than to the central image. The central image is formed by shapes carved away from the background, so those shapes are never relief; only the background areas are relief. It's difficult to anticipate how the pigments will build up, and it's also hard on the paper to build the layers up on top of each other like this. I've now put 10 layers of pigment on this paper, and some of the paper fibers are beginning to lift. (The paper is Yukimi from Woodlike Matsumura in Japan.) We'll see if it can take more layers or if I've reached a limit here.

2 comments:

Curt said...

I love 'watching' you work and reading what you're up to and why.nI'm really enjoying seeing how this turns out. Glad you're writing again.
-- curt, not unknown regardless of what google says.

Annie B said...

Thanks Curt. It's good to be back to the blog.