Smiley Rock

I thought it would be funny to make very purely digital images in Japanese woodblock technique. The contrast in time couldn’t be greater

one tap of a button for the computer

translated to a long time to carve some wood

then get paper dampened, then patient printing by hand, involving a gradual building up of colour over a few hours to days…

It was entertaining, and laborious, and then just a little bit overwhelming.

After a while I wanted to record the actual process rather than the final images

and then I started to worry about why I was trying to make perfectly registered images each time, when really the process of making the prints would naturally generate interesting frames.

So the eyeballs swivel around and then bounce out of the head, and I made some dark lashes and a kind of fluttery blink…

All in all I made 51 prints, but there are many more photos as they also record the build up of colour on each piece of paper.

It’s still very rough round the edges. I’m working on a new version with musician Eliot Kennedy, who has made a really upbeat and jolly tune!

Check out the vimeo file here

OR if the link isn’t working you can type in https://vimeo.com/237974015