Autumn Birds

         Each year I like to post a few autumnal block prints, and this time around I’ve found a collection that feature birds.  Because wherever I go I do love spotting the local birds!  (Want a few more autumn birds?  How about turkeys by Walther Klemm (c. 1906), or my own Magnolia Warbler?)

        First up is a Nuthatch by Nina Sage (UK).  With a background in biology and ecology, Sage has a keen eye for the natural world.  This little nuthatch is quite carefully detailed, but I think I love the leaves and bark of the tree even more.  This is a reduction print, and it looks like it has 5 layers of ink.  That's certainly quite complicated, but I appreciate that it retains a look of carving and inking by hand.

        Next up is a piece that celebrates the autumn migration of swallows, by Cathy King (UK, b. 1967).  This is more stylized, with a mid-century modern aesthetic.  It looks like it was printed with multiple blocks, maybe 4 or 5.  I especially like the grass and seedpods, and also how the birds capture the look that swallows always have of absolutely delighting in the lightness of flight.

        For a very different style, here are two pieces by Imao Keinen (Japan, 1845-1924).  He specialized in kachō-e woodblock prints, which are pictures of birds and flowers.  These come from the Keinen Kachō Gafu, 1892, four volumes of bird-and-flower prints, one for each season.  Both of these little birds look somewhat similar, and in this case I picked the images more because of the plants.  We have both the flamboyant glory of a bright red maple, and the subtler autumn beauty of berries and mushrooms.  These woodblock prints look particularly delicate when compared with today’s bolder images.

        Finally, another piece by Nick Wroblewski (USA), whose work I’ve featured several times before.  This goldfinch looks a bit scruffy, and I especially like the leaves filling the space around him.  This is described as a three block reduction woodcut, which I take to mean that it involved three different blocks, and at least one involved multiple carvings.  It might be that a background block and a black key block were not reduction-carved, while the middle block was carved four times successively.  But I’m not sure that explains the touches of grey on the bird’s tail, so the process may have been even more complicated than I’m seeing!

        In any case, these are wonderful evocations of the beauty of the season, and they’re reminding me that it may be time to refill my bird feeder.

[Pictures: Nuthatch, reduction linocut by Nina Sage (Image from VK Gallery);

Migration Autumn, multi block linocut by Cathy King, c. 2025 (Image from Cathy King Prints);

Shijukara and Yamagara, wood block prints by Imao Keinen, 1891 (Images from Internet Archive, Smithsonian Libraries);

The Golden Thread, three block reduction woodcut by Nick Wroblewski (Image from Nick Wroblewski Woodcuts).]