Layers and colors and prints, oh my!

Whether they’re used as Weezer’s album cover or turned into emoji, Japanese woodblock prints have long been admired for their striking imagery and rich detail. At the Center for Creative Connections, we’re excited to welcome three Japanese woodblock prints from the DMA’s permanent collection by Hiroshi Yoshida.

The soft colors and fine details on these prints make them appear delicate or fragile, but the process behind each of these artworks requires some intensive labor. To illustrate a bit of the behind-the-scenes work that took place for these prints, we collaborated with Austin-based printmaker Daryl Howard to recreate a traditional Japanese woodblock printmaking station similar to the one Yoshida would have used to create the works on view in C3. Based on a diagram from Japanese Print-Making: A handbook of traditional and modern techniques by Rei Yuki and Toshi Yoshida (Hiroshi Yoshida’s son), the display case in C3 shows a few of the most essential printmaking tools used for this art form.

Diagram of traditional Japanese printmaking setup.

Illustration showing printmaker’s position in the studio.

There are two essential steps to make color woodblock prints:

Carving the woodblocks. Each color on a final print image corresponds to a separate woodblock. For instance, creating a final image with black, red, and yellow colors would require a printmaker to carve three separate blocks-one for each color. Printmakers used a tō (knife), to cut fine lines into each wooden block, and various aisuki (flat scrapers) to carve out unnecessary pieces of wood. Chisels known as sōainomi and marunomi were used with wooden mallets to clear out large spaces on the wooden surface.

Maru nomi: U-gauge carving tool used to clear out large areas on the wood blocks.

Wooden mallet: used with carving tools to chisel away large areas on the woodblock.

Kento nomi: used with wooden mallet to carve woodblocks.

Aisuki: carving tool used to carve details into woodblocks.

Choko to: knife used for carving the wood blocks.

Printing onto the paper.  After carving each woodblock, printmakers applied colored pigments directly onto the surface of the blocks using horsehair brushes called surikomi-bake. Softer mizubake (water brushes) were used to moisten sheets of paper before printing. To transfer pigments from the wooden block surface onto the paper, printmakers placed the paper on top of the woodblock and rubbed it with a baren made of coiled fibers and bamboo sheath. The artist would repeat this printing process, laying the same sheet of paper on top of each different woodblock to create a final image made of multiple color layers.

Baren: rubbing tool made of bamboo sheath. Rubbed onto a moistened sheet of paper atop an inked wood block, the baren transfers the ink from the block to the paper.

Surikomi bake: inking brushes used to put colored ink on the carved wood blocks.

Mizu bake: water brush used to moisten each sheet of paper before printing.

In the Interactive Gallery, we’ve developed a printmaking station where visitors can experiment with Step 2 of the printmaking process by making their own layered color prints using paper, carved linoleum blocks, and crayon rocks. Like the traditional Japanese woodblock prints, each of the carved blocks at the C3 table activity corresponds to one color that can be layered with others to create a final image. Yoshida often used 20-30 different color block layers in his prints, but our activity only requires four layers. The crayon rocks act as both a baren and an inking brush because they simultaneously apply color and transfer the impression of the carved block onto the paper. Take a look at the slideshow below to see a step by step run-through of the C3 printmaking activity.

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My favorite aspect of the printmaking process is the way working with separate layers allows for countless color combinations. Yoshida used this facet of the medium to create vastly different moods and atmospheres in his prints—these kinds of prints focused on color variants are called betsuzuri. In his 1926 Inland Sea series, part of the permanent collection in the MFA Boston, Yoshida utilized the same set of woodblocks to create six entirely distinct images showing various times of day:

Hiroshi Yoshida, Sailboats: Morning (Hansen, asa), from the series Inland Sea, 1926, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Chinese and Japanese Special Fund.

Hiroshi Yoshida, Sailboats: Fog (Hansen, Kiri), from the series Inland Sea, 1926, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Chinese and Japanese Special Fund.

Hiroshi Yoshida, Sailboats: Forenoon (Hansen, Gozen), from the series Inland Sea, 1926, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum purchase with funds donated by Mrs. Laurence A. Brown’s Group.

Hiroshi Yoshida, Sailboats: Afternoon (Hansen, Gogo), from the series Inland Sea, 1926, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Chinese and Japanese Special Fund.

Hiroshi Yoshida, Sailboats: Evening (Hansen, Yu), from the series Inland Sea, 1926, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Chinese and Japanese Special Fund.

Hiroshi Yoshida, Sailboats: Night (Hansen, Yoru), from the series Inland Sea, 1926, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Chinese and Japanese Special Fund.

A small sampling of the prints visitors made in C3 this week demonstrates a similar effect using color variants to produce unique images from the same set of carved blocks:

If you’re like me and you can’t get enough of this medium, check out these DIY printmaking tutorials using styrofoam and soda (yes, the drink!). For a deeper dive into the intricacies of traditional Japanese printmaking, mark your calendars for the upcoming Late Night Art Bytes on May 20, and the C3 Visiting Artist Workshop with Daryl Howard, printmaker extraordinaire, on May 21. Happy printing!

Paulina Lopez
McDermott Graduate Intern for Visitor Engagement