Shina Tilia Japonica is a sustainable timber grown in the colder parts of Japan and is renowned for its fine, almost undiscernable grain. Illustration: City From Yellow Bluff, Tom Killion Ticket Informationįree after museum admission. The most widely used plywood in Japan for Moku Hanga (Japanese water-based woodblock printing). This exhilarating genre-twister remains one of the most influential and entertaining films of all time and was the basis for the spaghetti western A Fistful of Dollars, starring Clint Eastwood. The incomparable Toshiro Mifune stars in Akira Kurosawa’s visually stunning and darkly comic Yojimbo. To rid a terror-stricken village of corruption, wily masterless samurai Sanjuro turns a range war between two evil clans to his own advantage. Japanese Moku hanga and Ukiyo-e color woodcuts are primarily made with this technique.
Tom sells his work in galleries and on his website, . Usually done on plank grain wood, using open gouges. In 2006 Heus produced a series of woodblocks for 'Dusk to Dawn: A. Santa Cruz, where he was introduced to fine book printing by William Everson and Jack Stauffacher, and has since printed multiple books, including two award-winning books in collaboration with Pulitzer prize-winning poet Gary Snyder, The High Sierra of California and Tamalpais Walking. In October 2009 Killion and his studio in Point Reyes, California, were featured on the PBS program Craft in America: Process. The rugged scenery of Marin County and Northern California inspired him from an early age to create landscape prints using linoleum and wood, strongly influenced by the traditional Japanese ukiyo-e style of Hokusai and Hiroshige. Tom was born and raised in Mill Valley, California, on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais.
Killion will demonstrate his woodblock carving techniques in the artist studio today only. Killion uses an array of 20 tools, handling them in a "Western" manner, and spends up to 40 working hours to create a large and elaborate key block.
For the last decade or more he has been primarily using shina plywood blocks, made in Japan specifically for moku hanga (woodcut) printmaking from Japanese linden wood but Killion has experimented with cherry, pear, fir and various end-grain blocks including boxwood (intended for European-style wood engraving). An inspirational how-to course on Japanese woodblock printing's history and techniques, with guidance on materials and studio practices, step-by-step demonstrations, and examples of finished works by modern masters of the medium as well as historic pieces. Tom Killion carves the blocks for his Japanese-style woodcut prints using Japanese handtools which he sharpens on Japanese water stones. Bay Area artist Tom Killion will demonstrate Japanese woodblock carving techniques.