Episode Details

The work of Mara Cozzolino is nuanced and powerful. Her works of nature take the viewer to a wonderful place, of loss and of love. In Part 2 of my interview with printmaker Mara Cozzolino we speak about her mokuhanga method, the unique tools she uses when making large prints, her "cloud" lockdown project and I find out what shallow carving means. If you haven't heard Part 1 of my interview with Mara, you can find that, here.

Please follow The Unfinished Print and my own print work on Instagram @popular_wheatprints, Twitter @unfinishedprint, or email me at theunfinishedprint@gmail.com

Notes: may contain a hyperlink. Simply click on the highlighted word or phrase.

Mara Cozzolino's website.

sizing paper - at times mokuhanga printmakers will size their paper. Size is made from water, animal glue (rabbit, horse), and alum. What the size does is keep the pigments the artist uses from "bleeding" into the outer edges of the paper. There are many recipes of size, here is one that artist Walter J. Phillips used.

Mara's workshop

Panel Prints - there are many different types of ways to make prints, and Mara uses different panels to make larger images. In ukiyo-e, shin hanga, and sōsaku hanga, diptychs and triptychs were ubiquitous . Modern printmakers like Mara, use many panels sometime up to ten. Here is a list of panel prints you may encounter: single panel, diptych, triptych, tetraptych, pentaptych, hexaptych, heptaptych, octaptych, enneaptych, and decaptych.

brush pens - these are pens, usually refillable, which mimic the use of brushes, calligraphic or otherwise. Some bigger brands are Pentel, Ecoline, and Tombow.

hanashita - or "preparatory drawing" this is generally the first image pasted on your woodblock, with glue. Some artists use gampi paper pasted to copy paper, some use other lighter natural papers. This paper holds the outline of your key block in order to make the necessary copies for colour blocks. Here is a a step by step way of pasting from David Bull and woodblock.com

Paul Binnie - is a Scottish born artist and woodblock printmaker based in San Diego. His work has touched on the male and female form, kabuki theatre, Japanese history and tattoos. A collector of his works has created a website on his work and can be found here. His work is also represented by Scholten Japanese Art based in NYC. His Instagram page can be found, here.

Winsor & Newton - is a UK based fine art's manufacturing company. They sell all types of artist supplies including pigments. Their pigment page can be found, here.

Holbein - is a manufacturer of artists materials based in North America and Japan. Their pigments are rich and vibrant and are used by many mokuhanga artists. Their website can be found, here.

sumi - is a rich black stick, or liquid used by artists, calligraphers, and traditional Japanese horimono tattoo artists. It is made from the soot of burnt lamp oil. Used in key blocks predominantly in traditional mokuhanga, it can also be used to