the young curator

A beautifully restrained woodcut by Tarragon Smith. Note the woodgrain visible in the pictures on the wall.

Rough sketch of the Regent's Canal

Tarragon sometimes uses the iPad to rough out concepts for new work: this is a small digital version of what will be a woodblock print about 18" high.

The Young Curator

I started carving this back in October and I all but gave up on it as it dawned on me just how long it would take to completely clear it.  Luckily I started with the hardest part, so when a light router with a quarter inch shank and a sorry excuse for a height adjustment wolly sprocket, which had a broken flim flam almost immediately, came my way, (I bought it actually) I started the tedious and now rather loud and dusty process of finishing the carving.

To start to finish something is a fine feeling and I felt feeling fine for a good three months until lo; recently, this is the final result, more or less.

It is carved on a two by four sheet of a very nice birch ply.  Birch ply is what gets used when times are tough, but it is a tough timber to tackle and does not do fine detail very well.  Also, one needs to be more aware of carving direction when using it.

tarragonsmith.com

The new woodcut

Three proofs freshly made.

It's The Devil On My Back

A new woodblock print hand-carved and printed by Tarragon Smith.

Guy Fawkes Balloons

I missed Halloween, so this can be my Guy Fawkes day contribution.

Because the harvest was coming to an end they thought it would be symbolic to burn him alive in a giant pumpkin. This picture has four mini pumpkins with one mini Guy Fawkes in each. In the end they couldn't find a pumpkin humongous enough in which to put him so the idea came to nothing.

Young Woman with Credentials

This is a woodblock print. The same technique that is used to make all that old Japanese porn we know and love so well. You might ask then, why take this technique into the genre of portraiture? Good question.

This particular print was made using three blocks, four colours, and five printings (the background twice). It follows in the tradition, if it must at all, of the mid-twentieth century sosaku hanga movement in Japan. Books were written. Now, in the the 21st century, technique is back at its rightful place at the top of the cliffs of virtue that determine artistic merit. That's how we know what we're looking at.

To be fair, printmakers have always been preoccupied with technique. Without it they couldn't make their prints. I had to carve the two colour blocks three times each before I had the registration just right, which is a waste of wood. And quite sad.