Here are a few examples of white line prints to help students prepare images for the White Line Woodblock workshops that I teach. Hopefully this will give you a sense of what is possible with this method and help you as you prepare your drawings.
The white line woodblock method was founded in the early 1900s in
Provincetown, Massachusetts, by a group of artists who were interested
in Japanese printmaking but grew tired of the tedium of cutting a block
of wood for every color as that method demanded. These Provincetown
artists, including Blanche Lazzell and Edna Boies Hopkins, developed a
way to make a polychrome print from a single block of wood.
|
Monongahila by Blanche Lazzell
|
|
Canoes (Swift Water) by Edna Boies Hopkins
|
In the white line method, a simple line drawing is incised on the block
with a knife or gouge creating v-shaped cuts, which become white lines
when printed.
|
A white line carving in process |
Colors, usually watercolor pigments, are then applied to the carved areas with small brushes, one area at a time, and a hinged piece of paper is flipped over onto the damp paint to receive the impression, whihc is taken with a spoon or other burnisher.
|
Printing in process |
Below is a gallery of white line prints showing a range of
the kinds of prints that can be made with this method. Note that
although white line woodcuts have historically been figurative, since
they are drawing-based there is no reason why they cannot be as abstract
or expressive as any other form of drawing. Your sketch just needs to
be simple enough to transfer to a block by tracing with carbon paper.
(Or you can draw directly onto the block.)
|
B.J.O. Norfeldt, who is said to have invented the method in 1915
|
|
Edith Lake Wilkinson, who may have actually invented the method in 1914 (see the documentary Packed in a Trunk)
|
|
Mabel Hewit
|
|
Ada Gilmore (Chaffee) - a particularly painterly application of color
|
|
Florence Cannon, active in the 1940s
|
|
Karl Knaths, a Provincetown artist
|
|
Kathryn Smith, a contemporary artist with family ties to the original Provincetown Printers
|
|
William Evaul, a contemporary Cape Cod artist who has taken white line VERY large
|
|
Ray Heus, another contemporary artist with ties to Cape Cod. Ray also does mokuhanga printmaking
|
|
Joseph Vorgity
|
|
Katherine Lovell, a Rhode Island painter and printmaker
|
|
Four works by Annie Bissett that all use the same block matrix, just with different colors (plus some toner transfer)
|
4 comments:
Nice to see you!
Thank you. I was just thinking of your writing and how I've missed reading about the thoughts behind your work.
Hi Dusty, Hi Curt! You all really know how to make a gal feel welcome :) Thank you. Nice to see you again.
Thank you for your good summary of this technique. It kind of reminds me of pochoir stenciling technique. Great variety of examples!
Post a Comment