A few people who’ve seen this photo didn’t recognize the print’s subject. It’s an aerial view of a river during a rainy night at dusk with the clouds tinted by the setting sun.
A woodcut is made by carving a block of wood, putting it on a press bed, inking it (in my case, using a roller and oil-based inks), registering a piece of paper (Hosho Japanese paper), and applying pressure with the press.
I used a reduction block process. That meant that I carved the block, printed all the sheets of that edition, and then recut the same block to ensure that it would register with the previous colors. The block is destroyed in the process. No reprints are possible.
the white areas show the pure paper. I did this to acknowledge the paper itself. Black was the first color I printed (you can see much of it at the top). My teachers would have warned against such an approach because all the following layers of color would be dulled. But I wanted to explore that effect. The subsequent colors had some transparency or had to be opaque enough to cover the previous layer. The clouds were last, with the fade from red to white called a split fountain: the ink is blended on the roller.
After each run, the prints must dry thoroughly. Oil-based inks take a long time to dry—as long as a month.
I chose woodcuts as a medium because the process slowed me down. Painting is more fluid, quicker, and potentially grander. I found that it was almost “too free.” You can paint anything, but that means many more options. I often ruined a painting in just a few strokes. Printmaking meant that the medium set limits and required specific amounts of time within the process. That tamed my excesses.
Only later did I learn that the oldest printed text was made in China in 868 during the Tang Dynasty. That was the Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist book printed from woodblocks and discovered at Dunhuang. I unwittingly joined both a Chinese tradition of block printing, printed books (I have been a professional book designer since 1978), and religion. When you read about the Ten Stone Drums (18.0), you’ll see rubbings, which are also printmaking. Maybe the idea of impressions goes back to handprints on cave walls.
I graduated from college in 1976. This print was made the next year. I aimed straight at what I wanted to do. Along the way, all sorts of other pressures presented themselves. I became a graphic designer in 1978 and started a company in 1987. (October 17, 2024 was our thirty-seventh business anniversary.) I became an author with my first book, The Wandering Taoist, in 1983.
Just as I worked in the reduction block process, the years have progressively carved me too. And I’ll keep making new “editions” as long as I can.
__________
Rain Basin. Deng Ming-Dao. 1976. Woodcut on Hosho Paper. 18 x 24 in. Brooklyn Museum.
* https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/printing-press#