CASE STUDY
Context
Brief outline of the artist’s practice
My primal practice is photo-based watercolour woodblock printing. It combines photoshoped photographs and the way of Japanese traditional print.
Brief explanation of working process
First of all, making a positive film for silkscreen by Photoshop, then exposing a normal photo-based silkscreen. Secondly, making a screen ink medium by using lacque-based varnishes, or resinoid mediums, which is like polyurethane (This polyurethane is the same function as paints or vanishes for finishing coats). Then . At this time, a photo silkscreen is printed by using the ink on the surface of the woodblock. After that, taking the method of Japanese traditional print, photo-based watercolour woodblock printing will be successfully printed.
Applying the medium (in this case, it is coloured.) on the surface of a Japanese plywood block through the silkscreen
Relationship of digital technology to other processes/technology
Although this technique depends on silkscreen method, digital technology as Photoshop makes the process of the works more flexible in order to adjust reasonable contrast level of photocopy for silkscreen and for photo-based watercolour woodblock printing.
Indication of how they regard the surface in terms of importance
The most advantageous thing of photo-based watercolour woodblock printing is to make unique texture on prints. Totally you can keep the beauty of Japanese traditional print colour. In addition this is a new challenge to combination of traditional method and contemporary printing technique, and also exploring new dimension of printmaking by digital technology. Therefore, These attempting are conceptual and practical.
Specific issue to the new piece of work
Basically, the size of woodblock prints and silkscreen prints are fixed by the size of woodblocks and screen frames. However Photoshop is very effective to fix the image size for silkscreen. In addition, to have well representable photo-based watercolour woodblock prints, an appropriate level of color contrast should be considered when you make photocopies for silkscreen. For that reasons, digital preparation like Photoshop is crucial.
The actual surface of photo-based watercolour woodblock prints is considered as watercolour-base woodblock print because the actual technique to print is very similar way to Japanese traditional prints. The uniqueness, however, is that Japanese traditional print colours can produce photographical textures. In fact, there are already photo-based oil-colour woodblock prints, but the surface or textures are significantly different between oil-colour-base prints and water-colour-base prints. Also there are few investigations of combination digital methodologies with watercolour-base prints. However the practice, which directly combines photos with methodology of Japanese traditional printing, is very rare. This point is the significant contrast with others.
Title: as a brilliant mother
Size: 45×45cm
Process: watercolour-base-woodblock print (photo-base watercolour-woodblock print) and silkscreen.
Material: Paper (Zerkall printing), watercolour, acrylic, gross varnish medium
Title: Turn off the taps
Size: 45×45cm
Process: watercolour-base-woodblock print (photo-base watercolour-woodblock print) and silkscreen.
Material: Paper (Zerkall printing), watercolour, acrylic, gross varnish medium
Title: We belong art club
Size: 90×90cm
Process: watercolour-base-woodblock print (photo-base watercolour-woodblock print) and silkscreen.
Material: Paper (Tosawashi Japanese paper), watercolour, acrylic, gross varnish medium
Title: I wanna be a dancer, ganna sing and dance!
Size: 60×60cm
Process: watercolour-base-woodblock print (photo-base watercolour-woodblock print) and silkscreen.
Material: Paper (Tosawashi Japanese paper), watercolour, acrylic, gross varnish medium
