Enter a caption Enter a captionI know the title sounds bad and I should have more respect for my heroes . However, this is an animation assembled from a hand-printed progression in Hiroshi Yoshida’s “Japanese Wood-block Printing” from 1939. I’m fortunate to have a copy of this along with his son’s two manuals. Hiroshi Yoshida was a pioneer of the shin-hanga movement and I find his examples very instructive as far as layering transparent colors. The man especially loved grays and browns which is a bit surprising for me. Each of these four progressive plates have an average of 3-4 colors per page for a total of 15 impressions:

Plate I
Black outline; outline block (I).
Blue sky; sky block (VI).
Brown sail and boat; sail block (II)
Yellow on water; water block (VII).
Indigo reflection on yellow; reflection block (IV).

Plate II

Subdued purple gradation for the sky from bottom upward. The sky block (VI) repeated.
Carmine to heighten the light; the red block (VIII).
Indigo gradation from top downward on the reflection. The reflection block repeated.
Indigo gradation on water from either side; the water block (VII) repeated to kill the red where unnecessary.

Brown gradation on sails from top downward; the sail block (II) repeated.
Brown over the boat; the boat block (III).
Indigo for water to heighten the light in the upper part, and also perforated in the lower part; the indigo block (IX).

Plate IV (Finished)

Indigo gradation from the top of the sky. The sky block (VI) repeated.
Grey-block (V) to darken the masts and give a shade to the boats.
Indigo gradation from the bottom upward on the water. The water block (VII) repeated for this purpose. A baren of sixteen-strand cord was used to produce the horizontal marks on the water.

At the end of the progression, he also includes a night version (left).

Don’t take this the wrong way- I think this guy’s junk looks fanfrickentastiqué!

If you are interested in buying a recently printed copy from Mokuhankan, click here.