Living Prints® 'N Video Pioneers

Japanese Woodcut Workshop

1991. 75 Min. Color.

In this unique Japanese Woodcut Workshop, native Japanese printmaker Izumi Kuroiwa (also schooled here and now living in the US) demonstrates the complete process of Japanese woodcut printmaking in four easy-to-understand yet thoroughly comprehensive sections. As experienced educator and lecturer, as well as artist, Ms. Kuroiwa's warm and relaxed style of teaching will inspire beginning and advanced students to new heights of creativity and discovery. The 75-Minute has four sections:

• Section I: A brief History
• Section II: Tools and Materials
• Section III: The Process of Japanese Woodcut Printmaking
• Section IV: Maintenance of Tools & Making of Ink..

Part of the beauty of this tape is the inclusion of music-only sequences such as you notice over the printing scenes, for example. Only a creative person who has spent hours and years in the full spectrum of multimedia arts could have thought to do this. It is a relief from the tedium of a technique tape. Music and visual art blending like this is something most producers cannot afford. Such care with details are for everyone - from professionals to amateurs and collectors to enjoy.

Izumi and her husband, Mark Leonard, a media artist and a musician, made this tape together. It is a labor of love, made with their in-home studio video and audio equipment. The tape is sent with a printed, replicable copy of the spoken soundtrack to clarify indigenous Japanese names of tools and materials. Ms. Kuroiwa's English is perfect, but the tools' names are new to most people.

Produced by Kuroiwa-Leonard Media Arts

ISBN 1-56235-647-X (Ritchie's Living Prints® Series)

Note: See Living Prints® Woodcut On-line in progress.

Purchase by mail order from McLain's Printmaking Supplies in Portland, Oregon.