Wood-cut Block Prints

In the 1450’s, printmaking became a big hit because people were able to print pages for books and pieces of art. Printmakers most likely started with writing and painting illuminated manuscripts, but found it easier to use a printer and getting multiples of the same pages. Later on printers have improved to be more sufficient. For an example, the University of West Florida has a printmaking class where the student has to wind the lever around to push the paper and the fabric that keeps the paper safe from ink. My personal opinion, I love this class because I learned different techniques with using the ink and how to use different materials to etch a picture on. Besides a little history of printmaking and the enjoyment of printing, I found a website that talked about little children from Chongquing, China who did prints and painted the backgrounds and the foregrounds of the prints to make beautiful pieces of art. The children made handmade wood-carved print blocks that they printed and painted together. This article was done in 2009 for a 2^nd Annual Festival in China. From little information and pictures, I thought that it was awesome that even little children is involved with an old fashion wood-cut print technique. The China Art Online website, show some printmaking artists that still does some this century. One artist is named Song-YanWen who does nature type prints. They are all done with a handmade wood-cut block. Song-YanWen does only black ink and very subtle etching into the woodblock. The recent one was The Wave of Birds which was done 2007. The print shows subtle waves of shadows and light that gives the impression of birds flying in sky. But my favorite one is Abstract Fish which was done in 2005. This one is unique because the fish is so close together that the viewer has to focus on the illusion to recognize what is in the picture. The print also shows depth in the middle that gives the print more kudos.