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.