Japanese Woodblock printing course - St Ives School of Painting

I was very excited to attend a four day Japanese Woodblock printing course at the St Ives school of painting last week during half term. I’ve wanted to try the Japanese method of woodblock printing since I first started my woodcuts but found all the extra/different steps to the process quite overwhelming to get my head around alone. I finally stumbled upon this course through a Google search at just the right time when I felt ready to take some time away from home and family after an intense few years of babies/toddlers/lockdowns/starting school etc!

The St Ives School of Painting is a beautiful historic building which backs onto Porthmeor beach, the studio we were in had the most amazing view out onto the beach in bright beautiful sunshine, the sound of the waves crashing as our soundtrack for the four days - heaven. Our tutor was the brilliant woodblock printmaker Adrian Holmes who learnt the method while living in Japan for years, and now passes on his extensive knowledge back in the UK. We had a chance to look over some of his beautiful blocks and prints, and look through a selection of his Japanese woodblock books which was so helpful and we all referred back to them constantly over the four days.

Day one was getting thrown into the deep end with a quick reduction woodcut. This sounds a bit daunting but was actually such a great way of getting us carving and printing straight away, there is so much to take in with this method - so many steps and variables that if we had built up to just printing on the last day I don’t think it would have all had a chance to sink in as well.

We were shown bokashi printing techniques (gradient) and goma-zuri (sesame seed effect). My first bad attempt at a bokashi gradation is shown below in the sky, not enough blending or water - mistakes are always great for learning quicker.

I had the advantage of being familiar with the shina plywood we were using, the reduction method and most of the tools from my woodcut printing. However I hadn’t ever printed with water, wet paper, paints and brushes, or carved using a knife - the Hangito, so it still all felt very new.

I managed a ten layer reduction on day one - this is majorly due to my experience with reduction woodcuts, I have an idea of how layers can work and can carve fairly quickly. However my speed at woodcut printing is no disadvantage in Japanese woodblock where a slow, steady and considered approach is needed, I really have to learn to slow down, and treat each impression with complete care rather than one step of a long production line.

Japanese Woodblock printing is very sensitive, it is more about building up delicate layers of paint which I think in the future will definitely suit my work, but after a couple of years of experience rolling ink layers it feels very alien, it will mean a lot lot lot more practice.

On day two after a quick cuppa and look over our prints from day one we took a short walk to the Barbara Hepworth museum and sculpture garden to gather inspiration for a second and final print. What an amazing magical place, it was another gorgeously sunny day and the bright spring flowers and foliage shadows amongst the bold sculptures was very inspiring. After an hour soaking in the serenity of the garden we got back to the studio to start drawing our print ideas.

We learnt how to mark and carve out our kento - the registration marks that the paper sits in on the block. I also had a quick lesson on using the hangito knife which I found tricky, I snapped my blade straight away! After a quick resharpen and reshape of the blade by Adrian I had a little practice but it felt so strange to hold the tool in a different way and pull towards me instead of pushing away.

I spent the rest of the day finalising my idea and working out how many blocks I would need to carve. We were encouraged to really simplify our ideas, and abstract them. Abstraction does not come easy to me, nor simplifying… but my final design was still greatly simplified for me, I cut it down a lot! I loved the bamboo in the sculpture garden and the pinky purple flowers amongst the lush green foliage so focused on these elements along with a bold shape of a sculpture. I planned on five blocks, six colour layers and four bokashi gradations, but with limited time I’d be happy if I just got all my blocks printed and lined up to start with.

The third day was spent carving, just the sound of wood being chipped away by tools with the waves crashing on the beach through the open window behind me was so relaxing, I was definitely in my happy place. That evening I took some tools and my blocks back to my holiday cottage and carried on carving for a few more hours, so that I could get stuck into the printing the next day.

The next and final morning I was ready for test printing to see if the registration worked (It did just about with a couple of minor adjustments). Getting everything ready for printing took a lot longer that I had expected, I am used to squeezing some ink out of a tube, a quick mix and just rolling it on the block. There are many more steps for Japanese woodblock printing, from preparing the damp pack of paper, mixing all the paint colours, getting printing brushes for each colour and making sure they’re all in order. I’m also not used to watercolour paints, I am fairly used to printing inks and how these mix together but watercolours and their transparency is a whole other thing I will need to learn and experiment with.

Japanese woodblock is printed all in one go preferably, wet layer onto wet layer - completely opposite to the woodcut printing I am used to where I print a layer and wait days for that to dry before printing the next one. I found I had to be much more organised or my desk became complete chaos.

For my final print I managed the six layers and two of the bokashi gradations I had planned - in the sky and on the sculpture. Just the start but I’m so happy with everything I learnt in my four days away, and had the most amazing time in the beautiful surroundings of St Ives. I don’t think there could be a better place to be immersed in learning an art for a few days.

I’m now writing this back home and I’m full of inspiration for future woodblock prints, including another version of the Barbara Hepworth sculpture garden. I’m hoping this is just the beginning…