Eclipse

ECLIPSE
Watercolor woodblock (moku hanga)
11 x 17 inches (28 x 43 cm)
Made from 1 block, 7 hand-rubbed applications of color
Edition of 10 on Yukimi paper
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This is the last print in this series about fire. Today is day #365 of Trump and it's been a hell of a year. It's become a truism to say that the USA is a divided country, and it is, but one thing that brought Americans together in 2017 was the American Solar Eclipse. People from all different places and backgrounds and races and political orientations — all of us were riveted on the total eclipse of 2017. It wasn't political, it was just the awesomeness of nature and science and being a human on this beautiful blue planet. So I wanted to end things here, on this note.

As usual, here are the steps I took to make this print.

This board has been used for the first (yellow) layer on every one of the previous 11 prints. I created the entire eclipse print using just this one block.

I scribed a circle using a compass and carved the circumference with a narrow v-gouge. The small dots are guides I made for the "Vigil" print so I would know where to wipe for the white spots of each flame.

First color, as usual, was yellow.

Then I carved the sun's corona, which is visible during an eclipse.

That was the only carving. The rest of the corona was built up with brushes only.

One year down.

Vigil

VIGIL
Watercolor woodblock (moku hanga)
11 x 17 inches (28 x 43 cm)
Made from 5 blocks, 10 hand-rubbed applications of color
Edition of 10 on Yukimi paper
Shapes derived from four video stills of a group of candles.
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vigil
/ˈvɪdʒ·əl/
​noun
• a period of staying awake, to be with someone who is ill or to call public attention to something
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So we gather together and stand shoulder to shoulder. We watch and wait, and we try to stay awake.

The way the grain printed, with the suggestion of a current of energy running between the individual flames, was everything I could have hoped for when I chose that piece of wood for the final layer.

As usual, here are some process shots.

Fire and Fury

FIRE AND FURY
Watercolor woodblock (moku hanga)
11 x 17 inches (28 x 43 cm)
Made from 5 blocks, 10 hand-rubbed applications of color
Edition of 8 on Yukimi paper
Shapes derived from four video stills of a North Korean missile launch.
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“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
–Robert Oppenheimer, quoting the Bhagavad-Gita, 16 Jul 1945

“I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.”
–Ronald Reagan, 23 Mar 1983

“Since Auschwitz, we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima, we know what is at stake.”
–Viktor Frankl, 19 Jun 1983

“Japan learned from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the tragedy wrought by nuclear weapons must never be repeated and that humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist.”
–Daisaku Ikeda, 25 Apr 2012

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
–Donald Trump, 9 Aug 2017

“Will someone from [Kim Jong Un's] depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”
–Donald Trump, 2 Jan 2018

What else is there to say? I have nothing to add.

First two colors.

Color three.

Fourth color. The fifth block was printed four times to complete the print. Unfortunately i didn't take any photos.