A New and Auspicious Year..and a Lion’s Tail

Happy New Year… and a modest challenge for myself .

When I first started this blog back in 2008 I was in the USA and starting to discover a whole new world of plants in the beautiful Leu Gardens in Orlando. I had decided to smarten up my observed drawing skills so I started “Leaf of the Day” an almost daily drawing of a leaf from Leu. As well as being a good drawing discipline it was a fascinating journey of research into plants, their histories, myths and medicinal properties. This year I wanted to do something a little similar, if not quite so ambitious!

I decided a small weekly woodblock print might do the trick, somewhere I could indulge my delight in woodcuts of all kinds. But there needed to be some sort of point to it, so looking into images from the history of woodblock printing seemed a good starting point and would make the whole thing more interesting for me. I will not only learn something new (ahh bliss) but will also be able to appreciate and try different cutting styles, albeit with my rather inferior skills and materials. I don’t want to make copies as such but take the images as starting points…who knows where that will go.

Weekly Woodcut No 1 : A Lions Tail

As an illustrator my first choice had to be a small section of the very beautiful Diamond Sutra’s frontispiece, the earliest, dated, woodblock printed, book illustration.

Image from the British Library: Or.8210/P.2  Find details of the Sutra and further links on the British Library website here

Briefly, as there is so much to learn, marvel at and research, the Diamond Sutra is a scroll housed at the British Library. It is dated 868 (CE) and is one of the many documents found in the astonishing Dunhuang Temple Caves complex. Read more about them from the International Dunhuang Project here.
The scroll is over 8 meters long in total, comprised of 7 sections pasted together, printed from 7 separate woodblocks onto mulberry paper, I think. That is something I am trying to verify.  (See a fascinating video of the painstaking conservation of the document at the British Library here: International Dunhuang Project  )

The date is known because of a colophon which reads:

‘On the 15th day of the 4th month of the 9th year of the Xiantong reign period, Wang Jie had this made for universal distribution on behalf of his two parents.’  (11 May 868)

The text is a conversation between the Buddha and one of his elderly monks Subhuti concerning the purpose of life. Both are shown in the illustration along with various attendants, the altar and two small lions, sometimes thought to be dogs!

The cutting of the wood is fine and complex, the text is beautiful and complex, the philosophy mystical and complex. The illusory nature of everything the main emphasis.

:

So you should view this fleeting world—
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,

A flash of lightening in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream

         Red Pine, Translator

To me, it was fascinating to learn that the original paper is dyed yellow, a dye derived from the amur cork tree, which has both insecticidal and waterproofing qualities as well, of course, as being a colour sacred to Buddhism.

The Print
For my first trial I chose a small fragment of the print, the exuberant tail of the foreground lion.  My aim is pretty straight forward, to try to cut the outlines more or less as they are in the original.
I’m using shina ply for this which varies quite a bit in quality and chips very easily especially on this small scale. (The block is only 90 x 120 mm approx 5 x 3.5 inches.) Lino is much easier.
I don’t mind this as I like the slightly imperfect quality of woodcuts (as opposed to wood engraving), but it was rather annoying especially in trying to establish finer lines. There are ways to help stabilise the surface but that’s for another time.

I tried two colours and printed on both Chinese and Japanese mulberry papers.

 

A reduction print in two colours printed on mulberry papers.

Then I tried a last few, printed in a more traditional way with carbon black on a yellow dyed paper. As I don’t have any amur cork tree dye to hand I used saffron, of course!

   

Saffron infusing, dying the paper, the strands of the kozo easily seen when wet, the wet and dry paper.

A bit bright perhaps but interesting and it’s a lovely buttery colour when dry.

Printing on the saffron coloured paper using a traditional woodblock technique.

A finished print on the saffron paper, one of only 4 which were successful enough.

I am hoping to make some small sheets of paper and see if I can print onto those. Coming soon…

The printing surface will be important for this project. I’m so looking forward to experimenting with different papers and fabrics.

 

No 1: A Lion’s Tail: from the Diamond Sutra

Printed in waterbased inks on lovely Awagami kozo paper. 140 x 155 mm ..5.5 x 6.25 inches

It’s been a really nice way to start the new year.

I look forward to improving both my cutting and printing skills, but even if that doesn’t happen I will have improved my knowledge and understanding of printing in general.
It’s something we take so much for granted these days.
But just a brief glance at it’s history and I am immediately humbled by the effort, cooperation and skill involved in these early pieces to say nothing of the place of printing in the democratisation of knowledge and information.