Poppies by Moonlight

My apologies for not posting in such a long time. I’ve been trying to balance family life (read busy teenager) with work life (sometimes even a librarian’s life can get hectic). I have continued working on my printmaking, but at a slower pace. The blog was necessarily put on the back burner for a while. 

Here is the latest print that I just finished last weekend. This is a four-color print done in Moku Hanga style using 3 blocks. The upper flowers were done on one block with the yellow carved first. I then reduced the block  for the orange. The lower red flower was done on a smaller separate block. I did this so I could use two smaller blocks for the flowers instead of one larger block, but I don’t think it was worth the hassle of trying to get the registration correct. The light green background was carved on a new block and printed next. This light green block was then reduced for the dark green foliage. 

The print measures 8.5 x 11.25 inches on 12 x 14.5 inch Nishinouchi paper using hand-ground Japanese pigments. I had not ground my own pigments before and found it to be very satisfying.I used a mortar and pestle to grind the colors that I purchased from the Baren Mall. I wore a mask so as not to breathe in any of the pigment particles. I also wore gloves. The colors are non-toxic, but I would rather take precautions anyway. The colors came out quite brilliant.