A little while ago I posted on the subject of 'cultural appropriation' (Pocahotties, Picasso and the Elgin Marbles). That post referred mostly to musical themes, but I want to come consider the broader topic of appropriation, that is the use of the work of others in some way, in our own art. Of course few, if any, artists can claim to be wholly original. Even the greatest of masters had influences and in Newton's famous phrase, “We are all standing on the shoulders of giants.

So, when a little while ago I found myself in a creative low spot, (In the desert), and inspired in part by the idea of theme and variations from music, I decided in the end to try and dig myself out by explicitly examining and using a work by Howard Hodgkin that I had seen in a book, and which had particularly drawn my attention. The work in question, which I have yet to see in real life, is 'Rain' in the Tate collection.

Using that painting as a model, I first of all made a print version. This wasn't meant to be an accurate copy, but more than something simply 'inspired' by the original.

Subsequent versions went further and further away from the original.

I'm not claiming any great artistic value in these tiny monoprints. They appear to me to be attractive in their own right and in making them I achieved my aim of getting out of a creative slump. I also learnt some things I hadn't been expecting. For example, despite Hodgkin's superficially loose style, the composition of his painting is actually very deliberate. The blocks of colour and their placement have great compositional significance. In part this is perhaps consequent on his stated view that his paintings are not abstract, but always about something very specific. I certainly found, as I moved further and further from his composition, that it was harder and harder to maintain the sense of completeness that I find in his work.

Since making these prints I have moved on a little and used the generic style, rather than a specific painting as inspiration. These prints have yet to be scanned so will be uploaded at a later date.

In the wider context of appropriation, it would be interesting to get your comments on the idea of using another artists work in this way. Obviously I'm not trying to 'pass off' these works as anything other than what they are and personally I found the process both useful and fun. Using the musical analogy again, I see the idea of 'theme and variations' as a positive thing, but what do you think? Have you ever used the work of another artist in this way? How would you feel if it was your work being used as the source?

When my press arrived, I started by taking some impressions from existing plates. After that I started playing around with papers, pressures and colours to make some very small monotypes. None of these are much bigger than about 4" on a side. They were fun to make and when I get going will make a nice set of small pieces at lower price points in the shop. In the meantime here they are on Flickr.

In the classic period of Japanese woodblock printing (ukiyo-e or floating world) the initiative for a project – whether for a print or print series - came almost always from a publisher, who would contract with an artist, normally paying an agreed sum per design, for the production of the preparatory sketches. The artist would then this drawing to a copyist, who would make made an elaborated final copy which showed the (usually black) lines which outlined everything in the image. After approval of the completed drawing by the official censors, it would go to a carver, who specialized in carving the blocks used to produce the print. A master would do the detailed work with the rest left to an apprentice. A third set of artisans then stepped in - the printers who both made and applied the inks to the blocks.

Conventionally the resultant prints are attributed to the artist who prepared the first sketch, but the role of the other artisans was critical to the final product. It could be argued that giving central importance to the designer actually says more about the acquisitive attitudes of the collector in Western culture than it does about the real ‘maker’. We appear unable to accept the idea of a collective product arising from the culture of the people.

The collector mentality also affects how we perceive these prints. As originally conceived they were mass-produced and transitory. It was the scale of the industry, producing everything from wrapping paper and food labels upwards that supported the work we now ascribe to the likes of Hiroshige and Hokusai. There was no attempt to artificially limit the numbers and over the years other carvers would cut new blocks and the same images would appear time and time again. My own collection includes a 19th century version of this print by Hiroshige.

My print is much smaller than the ‘original’, but given the nature of the production process it is in my view equally ‘authentic’, showing if anything much greater skill in the rendering of the graduated colours in sky and water (bokashi).

In essence I would argue that the collaborative nature of the process, especially the total dependency of the artist on the skills of the carver and printer make the concept of an individual ‘maker’ of these prints untenable. Furthermore, the lack of any concept of a limited edition places the value of the work produced squarely in the artistic merit and not in scarcity. Blocks for popular series would be printed again and again, being recut if they became worn. There is some indication that total runs of up to 20,000 were made for popular prints.

Useful links

The production of Japanese Woodblock Prints

Japanese Traditional Prints – Just who made them anyway?

Chats on Japanese Prints (Discussion forum for Shogun Gallery – now closed but still readable)

Mokuhankan – attempting to revive the traditional production of Japanese prints

Woodblock.com – web site of David Bull

I'm writing a post about Japanese Woodblock printing, or more particularly about just who 'made' them and in doing some web research I came across this site. I will be linking to it in the final post, but it is so wonderful I wanted to share it directly.

http://mokuhankan.com/index.html

Essentially this is a one man attempt to revive the traditional Japanese woodblock print in all its glorious subtlety of technique. Look at the site, the prints and follow the blog - all truly inspiring.

I've been on Flickr since 2005 (and fotolog before then) and from the outset I have posted manipulated images. This and the one below are from a series using reflection and other manipulation to suggest a world behind ours.

Posted here as part of a retrospective review of my work on other sites.

A short post this time after the last two rather long ones. The picture below shows one of the screen prints so far.

There are five layers in this image.

The first is the 'line' texture

The second and third are based on a texture file from the internet based on rust. I converted this to a monochrome image using the 'threshold' command in Paint Shop Pro. The third has been rotated by about 180° and printed in a different shade.

The fourth and fifth layers use the same screen, again rotated through about 180° but printed using the same translucent blue with lots of medium added to the paint (I use acrylic paints with silk screen medium added).

Later layers may involve more texture screens plus several more layers in blues. The final layer will be based on a scanned pastel sketch much like those that triggered this work, but constructed to fit the image as it evolves.

I've been experimenting with various ways of combining 'traditional' media with digital. Of course the definitive work on this is probably Digital Art Studio but even so I'm sure there is much to be still discovered.

I have many images that have gone from a photo through a process of manipulation and digital 'painting' to create a digital print. I have also used digital images to create a solar etching and used a scanned drawing to create a digital print. This however is among the first that is genuinely mixed media. The background in this case is a screenprint, while the figure is printed digitally. The digital inks appear to have bonded with no apparent problems to the acrylic base.

Now available from my shop - one only.

I have also made a version using a scanned monoprint for the background, which I have issued in a Limited Edition of 25 - coming soon.

This post is the first in a blow by blow account of work on a new screen print I am making. It may be tempting fate to write about a print that isn't finished yet, but one of the aims of this blog is to write about my own development as an artist. It my be a  cliche, but we learn from our mistakes as much as from our successes. So, here goes...

The idea for this print has been around for a while. I discovered, by chance, on Flickr some images of neolithic rock art on Fylingdale moor in North Yorkshire and went on to discover many more. The picture below gives a good indication of how these ancient carvings often sit in a dramatic landscape.

Reading a bit more on the internet I discovered that the rock art of the North of England is, to us anyway, almost entirely abstract. (This web site is a good starting place, as are the books by Stan Beckensall, such as Prehistoric Rock Art of Northumberland. )

Living as I do near the World Heritage monuments of Avebury and Stonehenge, these had inevitably crept into my work. This for example was one of the first collagraph prints I ever made.

This isn't in the shop yet, so the link is to Flickr, but an example soon will be.

Given my existing interest in the period, in landscape and in abstract art, it isn't surprising that I started using some of these images in my prints.

This small embellished monoprint actually predates my conscious discovery of this ancient art form, but some of the forms used - spirals, circles etc are probably deeply rooted in our psychology.

Inspired by the images I found, by the websites and by other books (this one - Ancient British Rock Art: A Guide to Indigenous Stone Carvings - is nicely illustrated with drawings rather than photographs) I did some pastel sketches. You can see these below in a flickr slide show (which includes a stray photograph that has crept in somehow).

The next step was to make some digital prints using these sketches as a basis, but that will be covered in part 2.