November 22, 2020

Three colors printed in one sitting

By Leon Loughridge

The beauty of the Japanese printing process is that it can be so spontaneous. I had plans to print one color run for the afternoon but ended up printing three.

The first color run was a pale violet that was printed over the shadows of the clouds. It was printed as a gradation, full strength at the top and fading on the lower cloud.
Using the same block for the second color run, the clouds were carved away, leaving just the foreground. This was printed as a solid color.
I switched to the second block to print the medium blue. The clouds have been
carved away leaving just the building and trees. Since the colors are transparent, similar to watercolor, the blue became a shadow when printed over the previous burnt sienna color.
At this stage, the foreground seems pretty dark, but once some actual darks are printed, the building will take on depth.