New Year’s prints take years to produce
FROM sketching to engraving and printing, making a New Year’s picture can take days or even years depending on size and complexity.
Inheriting the essence of literati paintings, Taohuawu nianhua artists use slashing and sharp brushstrokes and strong black lines to outline subjects on thin rice paper.
Then, artists paste the rice paper on a wooden board with the help of a coir brush. Pear tree wood, which is cheap and neither too hard nor too soft, is commonly used to make blocks. Soaked for a year, drying in the shade, splicing and planning, the blocks need to be processed before being used.
A quandao, or fist knife, is the main tool used for engraving. Sharpening a knife is the first skill that Taohuawu nianhua artists must master. The knife blade should be in the shape of a crescent.
“Getting hurt when sharpening a knife occurred frequently. At the beginning, even when the knife-sharpening stone had been worn down, I was still unable to make the crescent-shaped blade. However, the challenge can’t be skipped over, as a Chinese proverb goes, ‘Good tools are prerequisite to the successful execution of a job’,” says artist Qiao Mai.
Afterward, using different blocks for each color, artists carve successively the sketch and the parts of various colors on several wooden boards. The most common colors are red, green, yellow, cherry, purple and black.
There is one more step before printing — mixing paints. The traditional pigments, made of minerals, are natural while nowadays many artists replace them with watercolor. Adding a little water and glue to paints, artists use a coir brush to mix them.
Both glue and coir brushes are custom-made. Traditionally, glue is made of ox bone, which is stewed until the water turns into thick liquid. The coir used in woodblock printing is carefully selected and needs to be boiled and dried several times during sanfu period, or the dog days of summer.
“It is very laborious to work on such hot days. I ask my apprentices to make the coir brushes by themselves in order to let them know that they must treasure and treat the tools well,” says Qiao.
When all the preparation is complete, artists paint colors on carved wooden boards, then put blank rice paper on the boards and apply a coir brush to flatten the paper.
From outline to colored parts, from upper part to lower part, from dark to light colors, artists print pictures in proper sequence.
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