Monday, May 7, 2012

Weekend: Woodcut Printing with Ouida Touchón!

For years my artist husband has encouraged me to explore printmaking. I always declined, siting other priorities, i.e. my preference for painting, jewelry-making and mosaic design. Gosh, a girl can't do everything! However, I have a spouse that is also my best friend and he can often see past the limitations I put on myself, thankfully. So off I went this past weekend (finally) to take an introduction to woodblock printmaking class with a women whose art makes my heart sing.


Ouida Touchón
Garden-Granada
size: 15x15, Media: woodcut over chine collé

Introduction to Woodcut Printmaking with New Mexico Visual Artist Ouida Touchón


 Design transfer onto Japanese Shina woodblock


 Ouida Touchón ~ Demonstrating proper carving technique


 Our turn ~ Carving the block, graphite test sheet in foreground

 Measuring to assure correct registration when printing



 Preparing the oil-based ink




                                         Loading the brayer

 Inking the block


Ready to hand print using Masa 77gsm Japanese handmade paper. Look Ma no press!!


 Stabilizing the paper...
 ...by hand
 ...firm pressing with the brayer

 ...using the back of a wooden spoon...several techniques for transferring ink to paper

Voila! (Thanks Laurie!)


After a printing frenzy....
Final clean-up and signing and numbering demo




Student Work!









 My final prints! Printed on...from left to right:
 Japanese Masa 70gsm, Reeves BFK 250gsm, Japanese handmade KitiaKata 30gsm (2) and Reeves BFK 250gsm

Iris
11" x 15"
Woodcut
on Reeves BFK 250gsm
Hand printed by the artist
Edition of 2



Our wood blocks. Pretty enough to frame!


I do believe I am smitten and bitten by the printing bug!  What a wonderful, fun and informative weekend! Thanks Ouida, chin collé is next!!!
To find out more about future workshops and artist Ouida Touchon and her wonderful prints, click here. Also, follow her on Facebook here.





4 comments:

Maria Rose said...

Ooo I have been waiting all day to hear how it went. Looks like you are a natural. What a fun class! Can you do it on your own now?

Victoria said...

Yes I can! You know, Cope did a lot of printing in California...we just never got around to doing it together. Seeing my work got him jazzed...could be beginning of something good...! Do you have experience printing? Sorry, I should look on your website..sheesh ;)

Onlythemanager said...

Very pretty!

Victoria said...

Thanks Susan!

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