It is something that always intrigued me since I saw Otto Mueller's and other members of the Bruecke's woodcuts done on site in 1910s Dresden - the angular shapes of his, Schmidt-Rotluff and other's figures fascinated me, and once I had realised that part of their painting form was so strongly influenced by their woodcutting practice, I was curious to examine more closely how one medium's specific qualities and limitations can inform another medium and vice versa.
A page from my printmaking notebook.I was compiling the material for the printmaking course I'm doing, and realised that I had done precisely that - not with nudes on the lakes in the surroundings of Dresden, but with the two scenes of pond reflections.
Pond reflections in Colour,
Soft pastel on Arches paper, 58x39cm
While the linocuts were done soon after the original plein air sketches [see my earlier post on one of them here], I then went back to delve a bit more into Wolf Kahn's Colorist palette and work with pastel, my favourite medium, in a different way: to draw rather than paint with the pastel sticks and to work on white paper (both things I had 'left behind' rather quickly when I stumbled into working with soft pastels).
Trees on Water, Monotype 2
20x15cm, Tosa Shi paper
From these pastel drawings I went back to printmaking - not relief cuts this time but monotypes in colour and monochrome. In colour first, using some of Kahn's favourite hues (notably cadmiums and ultramarine), and then to try monochromatic prints with a lot of wiping away, adding again,... to develop the composition further and see what abstractions it may yield.
Trees on Water, Monotype 4
20x15 cm, Tosa Shi paper
I am now going back to the next relief print - it's a different scene: there's no water in there, unfortunately, but have a look here for the first round of sketches and monotypes.
If you want to read up on my exploration of Kahn's palette and drawing marks: this tag assembles my blog's posts on Kahn.
