Artist: Mike Lyon
Date Completed: May 16, 2002
Title: Music
Dimensions: chuban (11" x 8")
Medium: Ukiyo-e woodcut
Paper: handmade hosho by Yamaguchi Kazuo
Pigments: Prussian Blue watercolor and sumi
Impressions: fifteen reductions and printings from a single basswood block
Sheets printed: 48

Artist's Notes: This is an example of the prints I produced for BarenForum's 13th Exchange, "Music." The prints are chuban, paper about 10 1/2 inches high. The print shown is a reduction print, printed by hand using Traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques and materials (except, of course for the reduction part). Traditionally, each of the fifteen blocks for this print would have been carved by hand. But in order to save time and increase risk, I carved only one block and printed all the sheets, then carved it some more, reprinted each sheet, etc., etc. fifteen times! Sometimes this method is called "Suicide Printing" -- perhaps because, if you make a mistake, you wish you were dead -- but more likely because each state of the block is destroyed by the subsequent carving, so there is no going back to pull additional prints.