Mountain Hemlocks: Woodblock Print

Moku hanga is the Japanese technique of woodblock printing that employs nori and gouache and/or watercolors to tint the blocks. I've really appreciated the ability to gradate colors--brushing on the color allows for alot more subtlety than rolling inks out. In this print I was trying to capture the special beauty of mountain hemlocks when they are snow-laden. When I was in Portland a couple of weeks ago, I stopped at Powell's Books, a favorite destination, and found A Natural History of Western Trees by Donald Culross Peattie, a classic from the 1950s. Peattie writes beautifully about some of my favorite species, including the mountain hemlock.  When the tremendous snowfall of the high peaks of the Cascades descends upon the Mountain Hemlock it bends with a lithe young strength beneath the burden, all its boughs, twigs, and ultimate twiglets drooping farther and farther till at last the load may be spilled to the ground. Then the bough, released, bounds up again into place, or sometimes the whole of a little tree will be relieved at once, during a thaw in bright sunshine, and suddenly spring up, shaking itself and seeming to laugh with its bright foliage.

Comments

[Simona]

That's a lovely print! I am curious: how do you use nori?

[Molly Hashimoto]

The nori is a Japanese rice paste that provides body to the thin and watery gouache.