doublefeh

Here we have my fourth attempt, and best yet. This was a more determined effort at figuring out how to use my new postcard paper, and I see definite progress, but even now it's not perfect; ideally, the water/far horizon block would be lighter.

It's easy to forget how many variables are involved in the printing process. The ink, the paper, the baren (pressing tool), the brushes, how the paper has been prepared, how the ink has been mixed... and changing even one variable can result in a 'setback' in the final result. Figuring out how to print what you want is straight-up hard.

Then again, nobody promised easy. Step by step...

Big Ben? Check. London Eye? Check. Double-decker red bus [even if it's the new design...]? Check. It doesn't get much more London than this.

(written june 23rd, 2009)
After shrops, London seems almost unbearably busy and hurried. Coming out of lester square tube station, I was literally stunned for a moment by all the sound and fury; people scurrying about, bright marketing signs, and lots of traffic noise.

On the other hand, they have Jerry springer playing Billy Flynn in "Chicago", which is pretty awesome.

I think my two days of outdoor activity in shropshire may have worn me out. I could feel it in my stiff pegs when I hefted on my full backpack, and a mere hour or two on my feet at the british museum left me aching for a break. Fortunately, I won't have to lift the full load again until we head home on Sunday, and tomorrow's touring should involve more drive than hike.

Battery life.

I decided to be somewhat daring and bring an extra battery on the England trip instead of the charger. While the battery is almost the same size, and is actually a bit heavier, it doesn't require the cord. The cord, bundled up, is larger than both, and is a real pain to deal with. I felt pretty confident that dual battery life would last me the week-plus-a-bit, and that I could always pick up a third while there if I ran out.

a week and 650ish exposures plus in-camera reviewing and trimming later, I got on the plane home with two of five bars left. On the first battery. I never touched the second one.

Best Crop Circle ever.

(Written June 24, 2009)

We spent today with my very favorite English brigadier general uncle, eating good food and visiting the archaeological sites of the Salisbury area. Uncle David really is a good match for the Andersen clan. I think he may be the only person I've met who plans trips and excursions even more obsessively around food than we do. On our last visit, the description of our itinerary was clearly siteseeing as filler around the important framework of his favorite cafes, tea rooms, pubs, and chippies. We constrained him a bit more this time with specific requests to go to stonehenge and Avebury, but he gamely rose to the occasion, bringing us to what was his favorite pub in when he was stationed in the area five years ago. (Dinner was delicious)

The prime activity of the afternoon, of course, was exploring the ancient mystical sites of deepest Wiltshire. Avebury is the remains of a huge stone circle, with a tiny English village nestled in the middle. Silbury Hill is a man-made mound the size of a small great pyramid rising out of nowhere in the middle of the courntryside. West
Kennet long barrow is an ancient tomb with surprisingly high ceilings.

And then, of course, there's Stonehenge. Stonhenge really is as amazing as the non-naysayers say. It's huge and grand and mysterious, even with the nearby road noise and the crowds of tourists (including a van full of Buddhist monks, orange robes and all). I continue to be impressed with the English Heritage's curation of their historic sites. While the audioguide didn't have too much revelatory information concerning a place as famous as Stonehenge, listening to it forces you to slow down and contemplate the monument at a more relaxed pace. There really isn't too much to 'do' at the site, and it would be all to easy to treat it as something just to get out of the
car and snap a photo of, which robs the site of much of it's power. Instead, it was the perfect capstone to a day immersed in the monuments of this mysterious ancient culture.

It's almost surprisingly difficult to get a good picture of the Rosetta Stone. So many people crowd by with cell phone cameras that it's an adventure just getting into position, and then you feel awkward for taking the prime spot for more than a few seconds.

I stayed in shrewsbury for three nights. And didn't actually make it inside any of the local historical attractions. I saw most of them from the outside... At 7am on Sunday morning, but I was out and about during business hour all day on my two full days. I almost delayed my return to London by a few hours to get the chance, but decided not to. The biggest things to see would have been the churches, and found it hard to muster much enthusiasm. Don't get me wrong, I like seeing the stuff inside old churches. But after seeing the holy trinity of notre dames in France (Paris, Chartres, Strasbourg) last fall, it just doesn't make the cut as a high priority.

(written Tuesday, June 23)

This may look somewhat familiar to those of you who've been following my printing adventures. And well it should! This is a new set of prints from my second set of blocks.

My original attempt only turned out so-so. The torii block itself was fine, but I more or less failed on the reflection and background impressions. My second run of it was an attempt to get a feel for a new kind of paper and working with color.

Well, once again I had some new tools, so I made a third attempt, and finally got some results that look pretty much like my original intent. This might not have been the best paper for it; it wasn't quite absorbent enough to pick up the light gray watered-down ink when there was as little liquid as is needed to keep it that light. I may try again with somewhat moistened paper. It's not an entirely bad effect, though; the original design does look a bit flat and static by comparison.

I wanted to have a go at a more traditional kabuki print, as well as get some practice carving finer lines. The primary design is adapted from the catalogue of an exhibition at the Freer/Sackler galleries that I picked up several years ago. I'm largely pleased with the result, especially the decision to go inverted on the clothing instead of trying to carve out each of those lines. The face was a bit much for me, though the end result was better than I had expected. To be fair, I had to carve it much smaller than the original. The original print was about 14 x 10 inches, and mine is 6x4. Also, it would have been carved by career professionals, instead of a 3-month dabbler.

So yeah, not too bad.

(written Monday, June 22)

Today, my reach exceeded my grasp. After a successful visit to the
pleasant 13th-century Stokesay Castle, I decided to go on a bit of an
adventure. I noticed signs for the Shropshire Way, a county-wide
hiking trail that went right to Ludlow, my next destination. Ludlow
was only five or six miles to the south, so I figured it would be a
nice hike, while still giving me plenty of time to enjoy ludlow.

Four hours of walking later, including a couple of false sidetracks,
I'm exhausted and hit what seems to be a dead end, still two miles
north of ludlow. I managed to backtrack a half mile to the golf club I
had passed and got them to phone me a taxi.

Ludlow itself was quite lovely. Their castle is a charming ruin with
surprisingly comprehensive access. You can just go wandering up towers
or down into basements willy nilly. The town has also turned itself
into a foodie paradise, with more Michelin stars per capita than
paris*. Lots of farmers markets, delis and cheese shops with local
produce... I could come back and just nosh my way through a whole day.
I didn't have enough energy to enjoy it at length though. I did enjoy
large portions of the hike, but not just taking the next train or bus
is probably my first real regret of this trip.

I'm also a bit grumpy that it only took my return train like five
minutes from ludlow to get back to Craven Arms, the stop for Stokesay
castle. It doesn't seem fair somehow.

Fortunately, the day had a bit of a happy ending. I went to a local
pub for dinner, had some good real ale (refreshing to have flavorful
beer that's not a Pacific NW kick in the face), and chatted for a bit with
some of the local color. This was a real beer-fans' pub. The owner
swaps his stock of English craft ales on a weekly basis, and most of
the regulars are on the board of the shropshire beer festival. They
were very friendly, and it was good to have some company after a few
days of wandering about on my own.

When I was done at about 9:30, I stepped out into a gloriously clear
summer evening. My first bit of unfiltered sun since I arrived, and
it had that lovely warm late-afternoon hue that I love so much. It
says something about the lattitude That they get that light at 9:30 pm
on the summer solstice, while we get it at 4 pm around the equinox. I
had one last good wander around town, drunk on warm light.**


*to be fair, there are only about 10,000 capitas

**And the beer.

Perhaps my favorite single site from the England trip was the ruins of the Roman city of Viroconium, near the present-day village of Wroxeter in rural Shropshire. At its height, Viroconium was the fourth-largest city in Roman Britain, and the city remained a coherent city for several hundred years after the empire's withdrawal from Britain.

To be fair, there's not really all that much there at the site. While geologic scans have revealed the full scope of the city's ruins, at this point only the remains of a bath house complex and what was probably a market hall remain above ground. It's nothing compared to the visible ruins at Bath or in Italy.

But what really impressed me about the site was how much English Heritage (sort of a parallel organization to the National Trust) did with what they had. At every one of the dozen informational plaques around the site, they had images of what you would be seeing if you had been standing there looking that direction at the city's height. The [free] audioguide made good use of sound to bring you deeper into city life and give you a real sense of how people lived and worked around these buildings. "Bringing History to Life" is a bit of a cliché, but it's one that the curators at Wroxeter Roman City realized to an impressive extent.

(more pictures in my photo stream)

Friday was Ben's 25th birthday! There were boardgames and cake. A good time was had by all.

I think it's really cool that not only did the Williams sisters face off for the singles title at Wimbledon, but they also won the pairs tournament as a team. That they can go all out against each other and still work together to take on the world speaks not only about their skill at the sport, but their sportsmanship and professionalism.

This shot illustrates one of the most appealing things about Shrewsbury. While its old town area isn't entirely clear of modern eyesores, the vast majority of it is a lovely mix of various older ages of English architecture, and none of it cookie-cutter. It's a joy just to wander through the streets and soak it all in.

Anyone interested in playing some board games tonight at my place? I recently picked up Attika, which is pretty cool and works for 2-4 players. Also, Small World, Days of Wonder's take on the Civilization genre, should be arriving today. We could order pizza or something.

This was meant to be full of pale colors. A light sky with a tint of orange above, a pale sea green ocean below.

Not so much. A good pale is surprisingly difficult.

This photo makes it look more washed out than it is, which isn't saying much. Hm.

On the right, you see one of the better outcomes of my first attempt at this print. It you look at all closely, it's a mess; the red ink did some weird running, some of the white loops are obscured, and the black poles aren't very solid. That was just over two weeks ago.

On the left, you see one of the better outcomes of tonight's print run. The ink is smooth, the image clean, and I added a bit of a dark bokashi (gradient) at the bottom to try to give the banners a bit more shape.

This was perhaps the single best print of the night's run, (particularly because the bokashi worked with the shadows better than in some of the others) but every single print I made tonight turned out better than the best one I printed two weeks ago. I may be getting the hang of this.

And since a whole bunch of new blocks arrived today, I'm ready for more!

I spent most of last weekend in Santa Cruz at a moku hanga (lit. wood plate-image) class. As you may have noticed, I already have a bit of basic experience with the medium, so I had two specific goals for the class:

1) Practice some line-work.
2) do the process in the presence of someone who actually knows what they're doing, rather than just the company of someone who's been figuring it all out as he goes along.

On both counts, I'd call it a success.

Line work is, as I expected, a big pain in the butt. In order to get that line, you need to quite precisely carve away both edges of the line. The Shina plywood we use is not an exceptionally hard or strong wood, so it's very easy to accidentally shove a break in the line or carve its shape unevenly. Carving that key block took more than 60% of the production time for the whole print-making process.

I learned a bunch of other useful tricks as well: how to hold the hangi-toh knife correctly, how to use the Kento registration mechanism, how to actually get that nice pale gray background on the mountain, a better ratio of ink to water to paste, and so forth. I'd call it a weekend well spent.

a wedding, a funeral, and two days of woodblock printing in Santa Cruz. Now I need a weekend.