I owe a lot to the Yoshida family, particularly Hiroshi Yoshida 1876-1950 who’s powerful color and design choices got me interested in woodblock in the early 90’s after I was struck by his work featured in The Complete Woodblock Prints of Hiroshi Yoshida. As one of the major shin-hanga artists, like Kawase Hasui 1883-1957, Hiroshi was able to take the layering of his watercolor paintings and transpose the process into woodblocks that are some of the most beautiful prints I’ve ever seen.
Below is an animated .gif I put together in Photoshop from images of a simple woodblock, Castle of Himeji, by Hiroshi’s son, Toshi Yoshida 1911-1995. From what I can tell, the impressions are as follows: (1) black keyblock, (2) light yellow sky (3) dark yellow foreground (4) med. gray architecture (5) blue/green sky, foliage (6) light gray details in sky, shadows (7) med warm green> dark cool green bokashi for trees. Note the small details, like the blue on roofs, subtle gray shadows on houses and trees. I hope to be able to print as cleanly and be as efficient in the color use someday.
