…. I learned about Japanese wood block printing

In Japanese ‘moka’ means wood and ‘hanga’ means print. Mokahanga is literally the art of  making prints from carved wood blocks. Today I took a workshop on this art. Elizabeth Forrest is the artist who taught the class and it was held at Articulations in the Junction.

Elizabeth Forrest

We learned about the history of mokuhanga and then were shown how to carve the wood to make our blocks. 

Carving the wood block.

Students hard at work. Everyone was so focused on the task that you could hear a pin drop.

Half way into the three hour workshop we were instructed on how to apply the ink and create our prints on specially made rice paper. Elizabeth has her own paper maker in Japan who makes these special papers. Articulations has signed on to become a distributor for her papers.

Here are a few examples of the finished projects.

My friend, D’s work.

Three of my 6 prints, plus the wood block. I started with the orange but wasn’t happy with the colour so I switched to the blue.