Description

Hewit printed with watercolor on damp, good-quality Japanese printing papers. Because the colors dried as they lost water both to the absorbent wood substrate and to the air, she had to apply color to the block and quickly transfer the color to the paper by rubbing the back of the sheet. The technique is tedious and time consuming, but each impression is a unique handmade object. Hewit was an excellent colorist, so her prints include a broad spectrum of matte hues ranging from intense to neutral and translucent to opaque. Speckles of white paper show through thin layers of color, providing a unifying softness while brightening the image. To obtain more solidly colored areas, Hewit printed shapes more than once.