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      Enchanting Scenes Combine Multiple Precisely Carved Woodblocks into Full-Color Prints by Tugboat Printshop

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      Art

      #flowers
      #posters and prints
      #printmaking
      #trees
      #woodblock prints

      June 1, 2021
      Grace Ebert

      “Blue Bridge” (2020), woodcut on ivory somerset paper, 18 x 22.5 inches. All images © Tugboat Printshop, shared with permission
      Valerie Lueth, who’s behind the Pittsburgh-based Tugboat Printshop (previously), continues to cultivate dreamy scenarios painstakingly printed with intricately carved woodblocks. Her recent creations include a distant truss bridge peeking through vegetation, a whimsically intertwined pair of trees—now in full color, this piece began as a black-line woodcut commissioned for an edition of Jean-Claude Grumberg’s The Most Precious of Cargoes—and a web of vines dripping with rain and jewels evoking a dreamcatcher.
      After sketching with pencil on plywood blocks, Lueth hand-carves the meticulous designs with knives and gouging tools and often cuts multiple panels with slight variances for each print. In addition to building depth of color, Lueth’s sequential process yields greater highlights, shadows, and overall detail to the completed work. The lush, leafy scene comprising “Blue Bridge,” for example, is the product of four blocks coated in black, blue, green, and purple oil-based inks, which are pressed in succession to create the richly layered landscape.
      Prints are available on Esty or from Tugboat’s site, and you can see more of Lueth’s process and a larger collection of her works, including a glimpse at a new floral relief in black-and-white, on Instagram.

      Detail of “Web” (2019), woodcut on natural Kitakata paper, 20 x 16 inches
      “Web” (2019), woodcut on natural Kitakata paper, 20 x 16 inches
      “Blue Bridge” (2020), woodcut on ivory somerset paper, 18 x 22.5 inches
      Detail of “Web” woodcuts
      “Together Trees” (2020), woodcut on natural Kitakata paper, 12.5 x 9 inches
      Detail of “Together Trees” (2020), woodcut on natural Kitakata paper, 12.5 x 9 inches
      Detail of “Web” (2019), woodcut on natural Kitakata paper, 20 x 16 inches
      Detail of “Blue Bridge” woodcut, 18 x 22.5 inches

      #flowers
      #posters and prints
      #printmaking
      #trees
      #woodblock prints

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    • 188 Shares109 Views

      in Art

      A Monumental Book Printed on Uncut Paper Celebrates Hokusai’s Iconic ‘Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji’

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      Art

      #art history
      #books
      #Japan
      #woodblock prints

      May 12, 2021
      Grace Ebert

      All images © Taschen, shared with permission
      A forthcoming volume from Taschen is an homage to renowned Japanese ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) and his iconic woodblock print series, Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. Compiling Hokusai’s original 36 artworks and the ten pieces he created following the success of the initial collection, the XXL edition celebrates the lauded artist and his fascination with Japan’s highest mountain.
      Encased in a cloth box with wooden closures, the 224-page book is layered with Japanese history and tradition in both content and form and features uncut paper and customary binding. The vivid, art historical works are paired with 114 color variations and writing by Andreas Marks—the director of the Clark Center for Japanese Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art is also behind Taschen’s volume chronicling more than two centuries of woodblock prints—who offers background on the exquisite body of work Hokusai produced throughout the Edo period when a local tourism boom positioned Mount Fuji as an enduring cultural landmark.
      Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji will be released in June and is available for pre-order from Bookshop.

      South Wind, Clear Weather (“Red Fuji”). Image © TASCHEN/Philadelphia Museum of Art

      Sekiya Village on the Sumida River. Image © TASCHEN/The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

      #art history
      #books
      #Japan
      #woodblock prints

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