East Meets West

In 1915, a group of artists in Provincetown, Massachusetts, USA, developed a printmaking techniques known as Provincetown, or 'whiteline', woodblock printing.  Artists including Blanche Lazzell and Ferol Sibley Warthen were inspired by the Eastern traditions of the Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcut prints but wanted to use one woodblock to print multiple colours rather than a different block for each colour.  This printmaking method brought traditional Eastern techniques together with a more modern Western approach. 

While developing work inspired by the Hidden Gardens at Plas Cadnant I am also going to be expanding my knowledge of printmaking by creating work using the Provincetown technique.  The image below illustrates the progress of one of my first prints based an image of the Snowdon Lily.

After cutting grooves in to the soft pine board to separate the different areas, each shape is 'inked' with watercolour and hand-printed shape by shape. 
The colour builds up to show the soft touch of a Japanese woodblock while incorporating an illustrative white outline.

Each print produced is like a monoprint.  The structure of the whiteline grooves are consistent features; however, the colours can vary slightly from print to print.

The subtlety of this technique will nicely complement my other drawing, painting and printmaking work associated with flora.