I created this print—one of my all-time favorites—in a mokuhanga course at Portland Community College (a traditional Japanese approach to woodblock printmaking). My goals for this particular project were twofold: to incorporate laser cutting in the process, and to experiment with goma zuri (Japanese for “sesame seed,” a technique that results in a dappled color texture). While I still have a lot to learn on both fronts, it was fun to experiment, and the bright colors helped bring some cheer to an otherwise uncertain time. (I editioned this right as everything began shutting down due to COVID-19.) Using the laser cutter at the PCC Maker Lab was particularly exciting for me because it lent itself well to my existing process, which involves a lot of digital sketching. Once my vector file was all done and everything was aligned, it took all of 40 minutes for the laser to burn the image into my block—slightly faster than I would have taken to carve all those tiny lines. I still needed to gouge out areas around and between the burned lines, but it was still enough of a shortcut to feel like a cheat! As an afterthought, I decided to emboss an additional dandelion tuft into the final prints by laying the still-damp paper rightside-up over one of the tufts on the original printing block.
…and here is a detail of creating the embossed dandelion tuft:
