Materials to create a woodblock picture
1. Wood for carving pictures
When it comes to wood carving, the first thing we have to talk about is wood carving. Carved wood is usually squid, thi, jackfruit, yellow heart, fat, gioi. The wood is hard but flexible, often used to carve for sophisticated, durable, long-lasting. There is a wooden engraving that has been used for 150 years, passed from grandfather to grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Ink wood (squid-tipped, low-grade) is light, considered to have no clear grain, soft, easy to carve, but also wears out quickly, and is easy to rot, so it is often used to engrave plates. Jackfruit wood is also easy to carve but often has wooden eyes, hard to be soft, so it often engraves plates. Golden heart wood has an intermediate strength between thi and squid, jackfruit is often used to make diaphragms, parallel sentences, so it can be used to carve both plates and strokes.
(Printing mold and printing on paper)
In the 20th century, a number of new materials appeared that could replace carved wood such as plaster, rubber sheet, MDF board, and even some people even carved on clay. Particularly, MDF board is increasingly popular because of its maximum width without having to be grafted (1m22 x 2m44), super flat surface (Because it is an industrial product), no grain, and soft, so it is easy to engrave, if damaged, Easy to paste and patch. Currently (2016) about 80% of Vietnamese engraving artists have carved on MDF boards. Plaster is easy to carve but also easy to chip and break. Rubber sheet can be engraved but hard to find. Engraving clay is the personal hobby of artist Tan Cu, done when the soil is wet, so the lines and plates are very flexible…
(Types of chisels to make woodblock printing molds)
2. Woodblock printing paper
The most popular paper for woodblock printing is dó paper, ban paper produced by traditional craft villages such as Buoi, Dong Cao, etc. Do paper is made from the bark of the do tree, so it is tough and soft. At the beginning of the XXI century, the source of the tree was declining and rare, so it tended to be replaced by powdered bark of poplar or bamboo (Truc Chi). Particularly, Dong Ho painting village also invented scallop paper by dusting powder from scallop shells mixed with glutinous rice paste onto dó paper, creating a glittering textured background and if scanned in color (red, yellow, orange, lotus petals). , green ...) is very brilliant. In the past, there was a time when the lines of Hang Trong and Kim Hoang paintings imported paper from China, now these types of paper can be produced. With the type of paintings that remove the strokes, leaving the array, people print on black scanning code paper. For oil painting, people use thick and porous croquis paper. Sometimes people print pictures on newspaper, Viet Tri paper, but it is difficult to be as beautiful as do paper.
3. Engraving
The chis used to engrave old folk paintings are steel tips (without a handle) called ticks, there are 4 main types: Nails with distinctly curved blades, Occasionally with slightly curved blades, Straight with flat blades, Background ranges It has a trough blade, but the body is curved to make it easy to dig and dig deep into the wood. For sophisticated engraving, people use a carving knife with a sharp and sharp beveled tip. In modern times, there is a set of chisels with a handle with 4 main styles: V for carving small, thin, sharp strokes, The trough is similar to the nail chisel but smaller and larger in size, The U trough so that it can be curved when carving. Easier, the Knife has a handle for sharp trimming.
(Wood carving technique)
4. Color and ink
Dong Ho uses homemade folk colors called female drugs, including: Black from sticky rice straw or bamboo leaf charcoal, soaked in water and brewed thoroughly to blacken. White scallops are produced by Dao Tu village (next to Ho village) by grinding from ancient scallop dunes, so they are sparkling white. Gold from flowers or gardenia seeds, stars and colors of Northern medicine. Red wine cooked from the wood of the wine tree in the forest. Red vermilion is taken from young laterite, filtered and pounded, finely ground. Indigo green from mountainous indigo leaves. Purple comes from purple ink. Duck neck blue taken from copper rust.
(Painter Tran Nguyen Dan in Khuong Trung Street - Hanoi)
Kim Hoang also used black grape ink, but white soaked plaster powder mixed with buffalo skin glue, other colors mixed products into glue. Modern use: Industrially produced pigments or printing inks (both oil-based and water-based) are available, a brush called a braided pine leaf, when swept, forms a smooth, parallel texture, a binder Sticky glue including glue, glue buffalo skin.
To create a beautiful woodcarving picture, it must go through many different stages and processes. Therefore, each woodblock picture created is a valuable work of art. If you have another painting for yourself, please cherish it!
Thank you for loving this line of paintings!
