She carves away at the wood, which reveals her design. There’s a different block for each color. Then she transfers the drawing onto multiple wood blocks. When Linda Beeman makes a print, she starts with a line drawing, similar to a coloring book page. That’s what they did all day long.Ī large copy of "The Great Wave" by Hokusai hangs on the Chase Bank building in downtown TC. Linda says one man would cut the mountains in the background and then another would add the trees. “It was more of a mass produced print- like posters,” explains Linda. “There were factories of men who did this.” Linda says these kinds of prints weren’t considered a fine art until the 1900s. But people in Japan didn’t think that much of it during the time. “The Great Wave” was made in the 19th century. There’s a large copy of it hanging on the Chase Bank building in downtown Traverse City. One the most iconic prints made in this style is called “The Great Wave.” “It’s such a rare art form that people in the United States, especially universities, don’t know anything about it,” Linda says. “There are so few of us we’re drops in the ocean.” Moku hanga uses watercolor paints instead of synthetic materials like acrylic or oil-based paints. Linda wanted to find a way to do printmaking without the chemicals and that’s when she found the art of moku hanga, which in Japanese means “wood print.” "But I didn’t like all the fumes and the toxicity of it.” “I really liked carving the wood for woodblock prints," she says. Linda Beeman is a printmaker from Owosso, Michigan.
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