Netsuke Now

Mon: Family crests and design

2011-01-04T09:18:00.000-08:00

I was given this book as a Christmas present. It's a reprint from a 1913 edition, so the mon aren't completely up-to-date. What's fascinating is the simplicity of the early designs, the stylization of others and the complexity of what I assume are some of the later designs.

Now, I gather, organisations, businesses and many other groups and people have designed their own mon and use them instead of logos; their number must run into many thousands of designs. Originally, mon were used much as heraldry is in the West, first for identification on the battlefied and at court; later, on banners as well as arms and armour, many household and decorative artifacts and even on kimono and haori jackets.

Very few in the book could be adapted for netsuke of the manju or kagamibuta type, but they are a source of thought and allow the mind to spin in other directions concerning what can be used for decorating these kinds of netsuke.

It led me to think about design in relation to all the basic shapes of netsuke. Katabori (figural netsuke) allow for studies in the round; the design element here is about how lifelike or not the carver intends the figure to be. The flatter netsuke don't have this quality as they rely on applied designs. These can range from something as simple as the simpler mon, to highly detailed inlaid, incised, relief or urushi (lacquer) work. Ryushi, pierced netsuke, of course, rely on creating artistic and pleasing spaces within the work. Each shape determines, to some extent, the nature of the design.

More on Power Tools

2010-12-05T06:29:00.000-08:00

I don't like them and don't like the one I bought. They're noisy, crude and clunky to hold. I much prefer using hand tools and would use the rotary tool only for initial roughing out. Even then it takes quite a bit of delicacy and skill not to gouge out too much of the unwanted material.

To date, I've three unfinished netsuke on my desk, but much of my free time this past six months has been taken up with family illness and I've been making things I can more easily take around with me - Hardanger embroidery, designing and knitting a Shetland shawl and christening robe and a fabric construction.

I also invested some pennies in a couple of contemporary cheap Chinese netsuke, just to see how awful the carving and finishing was. They're pretty dire. The subject matter is uninspiring in a cheap knock-off kind of way, the finish is a gritty varnish, the carving is as minimal and slap-happy as it's possible to get and the himotoshi are a joke. As for the "signatures," don't get me started! What a waste of good boxwood! Why people buy these things for decoration, I'll never understand, but buying them for studying is a good lesson in what not to do. In that regard, it was money well spent, though I certainly shan't be buying any more.

Power Tools

2010-06-13T08:27:00.000-07:00

I finally succumbed and bought a cheap, unbranded rotary tool, more out of curiosity than anything else. I'll buy an expensive one if I take to using them. So far, the only use I can see for it is for roughing out a design; it takes some of the drudgery out of the basic work. I certainly wouldn't use it for detailed work and I'm not enamoured of the noise, the vibrations or of the nonsense with masks and dust collection; they interfere with the almost contemplative process of making a netsuke entirely by hand. All in all, I still have doubts about its use, though I know that the old Japanese carvers used bow-string operated drills and suchlike from time to time.

It comes with a useful range of drills and abrasive bits and pieces that can always be used as hand pieces if I decide not to go the mechanical way.

If it is going to be used, there are certain necessary precautions to be taken. Well-fitting face-masks are essential; silicosis is not an option in my life. It's important to practice on spare pieces of wood for quite a while before using it on a piece for completion; it takes time to get used to the speed and rhythm of the tool and use it with a delicate, controlled touch. It's also essential to hold the piece in either a small table vice or a hand vice; you'd be surprised at how much in the intitial stages of learning the tool slips. Gouging through a hand with one of these things wouldn't be much fun. After turning off the tool, don't touch it to change bits, or lay it down on the workbench until the chuck has stopped spinning and be aware that the chuck can get hot.

Re-reading this list of caveats, I'm beginning to wonder quite why I bothered buying it. Maybe my attitude will change with time and familiarity, though.

Next Step - Citrus

2010-05-09T09:05:00.000-07:00

The basic design has been blocked out in ink. Here, I'm following
a number of drawings that are really studies of dried clementines and lemons. Mostly clementines don't have pips, though I've found some that did, and as I want to imitate the clementine shape and outer colours, I've mostly studied those. Both shape and colours are fairly complex, so it'll be another test to see if I can make my drawing concrete.

The dried fruit shows many indentations on the surface, so the cross-hatching in the design will be where this takes place. The vertical lines indicate where the fruit has dried along the edges of its sections; these show deeper indentations than the part which will show the sections of the fruit. The arrangement of pips will show some cut in half and others whole.

Tools I'm using at the moment? Some mini-gouges, tiny knives and scrapers. All had to be made and I might have to make one or two more curved ones to get into small, skewed recesses.

Half a Citrus

2010-03-29T08:23:00.000-07:00

This is in boxwood - much easier to carve than tagua, knots and ridges notwithstanding.

I'm using some dried limes, lemons and clementines for live models, as can be seen on my carving slab, some photos for the inner parts and some drawings of tricky parts. It will be worked all over with texture, which will make it quite rough in the hand; if all goes well there won't be any smooth, polished part.

The staining will be time-consuming as there are so many variations across the outer peel and the inner 'flesh' and pips. The himotoshi will be formed from the bent stem at the bottom of the netsuke. The dimensions will be roughly 3.8mm x 2.5mm.

I'll try to take photos at various stages on development, so something can be seen of the processes involved. The current one shows the wood rough with the sections of the fruit and pips drawn in and some shaping to the underside. Beside it are the various dried fruits themselves. I'll be following the Clementine shaping of the dried example reasonably closely, though with some modifications.

Wasps' Nest

2010-03-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

I've finished the tagua nut sliver which was started about June 2009. It's really just an experiment in high-gloss polishing and bas-relief work with what is essentially a flat plane across the tree and nest and isn't meant to be a netsuke, though it originally was. It's very tactile and feels good in the palm of the hand. I followed the design in the nut when I cut it across and 'found' the rough shape of the nest within, though I did some drawings before carving. The nut will darken to a honey brown over time, so the bark of the tree will be more distinct and the cracks on the bark will fill with dirt, making them more obvious. The stain on the nest and leaf will also correspondingly darken.

Originally, the back of the design was going to have himotoshi, an incised beehive and my initials, but after practicing incising on spare pieces of nut, the material really isn't suitable for it in very small detail, as all such incised work on tagua tends to have rough edges and background and looks crude. I then decided that I liked the feel of the polished tagua as is, so following my original thoughts of letting the nut dictate the outcome, I decided further to leave out the himotoshi and initials. So it's now really a one-dimensional, hand-held, relief miniature. Another instance of how the design can be changed in the making to one more suitable to the material! It's also another lesson learned - don't attempt to push the material too much beyond the limits of what it can do.

Tagua's really nasty for carving fine details because it has a tendency to chip and I don't generally find it to be a sympathetic medium, so am glad to get back to carving boxwood. When hard, the nut has a grain, which is laid down in layers as the tagua has dried. Working along the grain causes tools to slip and skid as the surface is like very hard candle wax; working across the grain can cause chipping, so only really tiny tools, much magnification and hours of scraping will overcome this tendency. It'll be a long time before I work the material again.

Tagua, wasps' nest, angled sliver from 3/16th" on the smooth, highly polished side to 1/2" on the matt 'tree' side, with the nest, twigs and leaf being a little polished; no detail on the reverse, just highly polished. Overall dimensions, just under 2" x 1 1/4". Very light staining on nest and leaf; turmeric and saffron on nest; turmeric, paprika and white tea on leaf; mordant for stain - alum. No acid mordant used for tagua, as a practice piece showed some disintegration of the nut surface; polishing papers up to 12,000.

Tack Bowl

2009-10-19T06:20:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy family summer, but I'm back to work now.

I wanted a support for carving netsuke, but didn't want a fixed bench peg, the traditional way carvers hold their work to steady it when carving.

I took an idea from a metalworker's pitch bowl, but scaled it down considerably. I found an almost hemispherical 5" metal bowl with a lip, hammered it into more of a hemisphere, part filled it with lead fishing weights, then filled it with white tack. The support for the bowl was made with four pieces of a thick scart cable, each taped together with insulating tape. The resulting rings were placed on top of each other and the whole ensemble covered with more insulating tape and two courses of looped stringing. It was then covered with cotton tape to finish it.

The carving is placed on the white tack, or, rather, a pit is dug in the tack, making a secure hold for the piece being carved. The contraption works and is heavy enough to hold the piece steady, without the bowl support slipping, when carving. Even with the lip, the bowl tilts as much as I'll need for carving purposes. Cost? About £5.00 and a couple of hours of work. Of course, I've now found out that there are small jewellers' pegs that can be clamped to a workbench and removed when not being used, but I'm satisfied so far with the d-i-y arrangement.

Snags

2009-07-08T06:18:00.000-07:00

I'm half-way through carving a tagua nut netsuke and have hit difficulties, wanting to engrave a simple design on the back, but being completely new to engraving in any form. That being so, I've been practising the art on odd bits of nut for what seems like weeks, but the results are crude; the line's still uncertain, wobbly, even, and I'm getting more and more frustrated.

I know there's no substitute for continued practice and I'm determined to get it to the state where I feel confident enough to tranfer the results to the real thing. If I don't learn to do it now, I'll have to learn how to do it later, so it's a question of just ploughing on.

What I am learning, though, is while I'm quite confident about transferring the crafts I know, like dyeing and staining, to netsuke, when it's something I don't know, then I'm back to crudity and lack of confidence. What is odd, though, that I had no such issues when starting to carve in the first place, so I still can't really understand why engraving is such a problem. Oh, well, it's all in a good cause, I suppose. Moan over!

Erm, a revelation's just happened and might help. How daft can you get?

I visualised the results of what I was carving quite strongly before and as I was carving; I haven't done so with the engraving, even though I have sketches and drawings of what I want to achieve. In any art work I've completed in the past, I always had pretty strong internal visualisations of what I wanted to achieve, even if I changed things slightly while in the making of it. I've more of a sense now of what I need to concentrate on with etching; focus on achieving the outcome and stop fretting about tool use. Time will tell if I'm in the throes of delusion!

Hippo Ivory

2009-06-30T07:54:00.000-07:00

I've recently acquired a whole hippo tusk, 50 years old, much cracked, but with enough whole material to carve a number of netsuke and have lots left over for ojime, inlay work and other projects. At 4lbs weight, the most massive tusk I've ever seen, its cost of £100 was pretty reasonable.

I haven't yet sawn into it and am still studying where I should do so, but I have taken off some of the enamel and the underlying ivory is very white.

Its provenance is unusual. It was brought back to the UK in 1950 by a retiring member of the Ugandan Police Force and was acquired in Jinta, Uganda around the same date. It was inherited recently by the man who sold it on to me.

Hippos weren't a protected species in those days, and even in the early days of the CITES legislation, it still wasn't protected. Now it is, though not to the same degree as elephant ivory.

After inquiries to CITES/DEFRA, it was deemed legal to sell it on to me as both the seller and myself are in the UK, but if I do carve it and if ever those carvings are sold abroad, they'll require CITES certificates, which is why it's necessary to know the material's provenance.

Ivory

2009-04-21T04:49:00.000-07:00

With the CITES restrictions on the material, it's now next to impossible to obtain elephant ivory - unless, of course, you can find the ever more rare old billiard balls. And I certainly don't intend to hack into the two old Thai bangles I possess; they're a rarity in their own right.

Many netsuke-shi now have resorted to using mammoth ivory, as did some of their predecessors. But that, too, will get increasingly rare. There is, after all, a limit to dead mammoth. It's also difficult to find pure white pieces that aren't too chalky. It won't stand water-based bleaches, stainings or cleansers because that can cause surface cracks that may deepen over time. It's also becoming more expensive at between £100-£200 per pound.

Other ivories? Hippo tooth, fossilised walrus tusks and some sharks' teeth are available, but these tend to be small pieces without the versatility of the bigger mammoth and elephant ivories. On the other hand, they can test the netsuke-shi's powers of adapting his/her skill to fit the material available.

Purists and collectors will probably hand-wring for eternity, but I see no reason why carvings can't also be made from the good ivory-like plastics now coming onto the market. They are, after all, just more blank canvases with qualities of their own. A good netsuke-shi would be able to exploit these.

Tagua Nut

2009-04-07T04:45:00.000-07:00

I looked at the price of clean, white mammonth ivory and nearly wept (the same applies to clear amber), so bought some tagua nuts from a reliable timber specialist in Wales.

Of course, being me, I couldn't resist skinning one and cutting it in half to examine its structure, even though I was working on another boxwood piece. The interior suggested a design which I worked up in some sketches and I wanted to practice high gloss polishing, which the nut certainly takes well. It seems to be about the same hardness as boxwood, so would be a little softer than carving ivory. Polished, this piece is very slightly grey in tone, but has a similar appearance to some mutton-fat jades. Whether or not it will take himotoshi (the two holes that make the netsuke wearable as a toggle) without cracking remains to be seen. However, the piece is an experiment to see what the nut will do, so it won't matter if anything happens to it.

One thing not to do with tagua is to soak it with water; that will cause splits. The nut needs to be dried for around seven months after it's picked before it's of a hardness for carving and it's wise to pick out the small gelatinous bit from the stem hole so that the interior (especially if it has fissures, which most nuts do) can dry out evenly. I also keep the skinned material in a plastic bag with ventilation holes when I'm not working on it so it can dry out slowly; unskinned nuts are stored in a plastic bag without ventilation.

Magnifiers

2009-04-01T05:22:00.000-07:00

I've old eyes - short and long sight and an astigmatism; the lot! I find I can only work on netsuke with my glasses off, but my eyes start to ache after about 45 minutes, so magnifying spectacles or glasses are in order. My optician at the daft end of the city said that "people don't ask for these, so, no, we don't do them." After searching all over, I found that no optometrist supplies them. I then bought some x3 clip-ons, but they're worse than useless, though my hand-held x8 magnifier is great, if useless for a carver, as I haven't got a stand and it's not wide enough at 3". I've now invested in a headband with multiple attached lens, which, when combined, should give me a much needed x8 vision and I can wear them with or without my everyday glasses.

There are many varieties of magnifiers, though, and I suspect that what people choose will have to suit their individual needs. There are table models, ones that rest on the collar bone, clip-on or stand alone jewellers' loupes, optivisors and the ones I've descibed above. Prices vary from very expensive German and Swiss precision lens to reasonably cheap, if straightforward, magnifiers. I'd have preferred to have found an optometrist to provide the correct types of lens, but if the over-the-counter route is the only way I can go, so be it.

The Loupe Store is the best supplier of magnifiers in the UK that I've come across online.

Staining, sanding and polishing

2009-03-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

It takes hours. Once the netsuke is carved, decisions have to be made about its finish. Will it be stained? If so, there are a variety of colours and materials, from water or oil-based stains, commercial or homemade, and techniques, from boiling the piece, to repeated dippings in hot stain, to dippings in cold stain. Some netsuke-shi colour the piece only after sanding to a fine, polished finish; others stain before the sanding process because colouring in water-based stains raises the grain of the wood, which then has to be sanded down and polished. Some netsuke have staining in the crevices only, the rest being snaded off the piece; sumi ink or other dark-coloured stains are often used for this purpose.

Whatever the process, sanding is important. Carvers usually work with grits from 200 up to at least 2000, using even finer abrasives and grits if they want a high polish. Other carvers use pumice or rottenstone powder as part of the process and slightly stain the piece afterwards to colour any powder trapped in the pores. Both sandpapers and powders are used with polishing compounds such as hard-finish waxes or hard-drying oils in the final stages of sanding. Final polishing may then be completed with a thin layer of oil or wax and buffed hard with a chamois leather or soft cotton (T-shirt cotton) cloth. Some netsuke-shi use an electric sanding/polishing wheel, while others prefer to complete the process by hand. Each piece is treated differently, with some perhaps having a high gloss finish and others a more matt sheen; all depends on the quality of the carved material and what end the netsuke-shi is trying to achieve. In general, the harder materials like boxwood, holly, ivory and tagua will take a high gloss, if so desired, while the softer woods respond better to a more matt finish. As well, only parts of the netsuke need be polished, while others may be left in a rougher state so that the piece varies in quality and appearance.

There are many oils and waxes. Those who want a stain with their oils can use boiled linseed or tung oils; those who don't may want to use pale walnut or grape-seed oils. The idea is to bring out how the light reflects the qualities of the grain of the wood and is the reason why varnishes and shellac are not encouraged; the latter result in the piece being too shiny and uniform. Thin coats of wax can be used instead, as long as care is taken not to clog the crevices of the carving with it. Thin layers seems to be the rule for both oils and waxes.

Some netsuke-shi experiment with urushi, or lacquer-work finishes. As with carving and other types of finish, be prepared for hours and, in the case of lacquer, days of work.

Finding tools

2009-03-27T07:44:00.000-07:00

Mainly, it's difficult. There are some manufacturers of micro woodworking tools, but these tend to be expensive, not under 1mm in width and only of the chisel, parting tool, gouges, v-tool variety. Netsuke-shi often have to work with tools of a smaller width or diameter. It is possible to use some dental tools and to find micro-reamers, drill bits and needle files, but micro-scrapers, punches, engavers and knives are also needed. Netsuke-shi either resort to specialist tool makers, or resort to learning forging techniques and make their own.

I've recently made some from hand-grinding micro-width pin punches and some scrapers, punches and engraving tools from off-cuts of piano wire, chosen because it's of a high-tensile enough steel to forge and temper to the right degree of hardness. That meant buying a mini-anvil and various small jewellers' hammers. I drew the line at building a mini-forge, or working indoors with propane gas burners, and, instead, used the flame on the gas jet of the kitchen hob. It heats the metal to a high enough degree to allow me to work it - and to temper the tool after. After an oil or water quenching, the tools are then set and glued into hardwood handles.

Now, all I need to make are some angled scrapers and mini knives and some round-headed punches - for the time being.

It's becoming clear that it would be best to make the tools I need as I go along.

First things first

2009-03-26T10:39:00.000-07:00

After a couple of false starts, this pumpkin was my first completed netsuke, measuring about 43 x 23mm, though the photos were taken at a stage before completion.

It was carved from 8 year old sycamore and stained with a strong mixture of Assam and Rooibos teas, resanded with up to 1200 grit sandpaper, then treated with grape seed oil, left to dry for a few weeks and polished. It took about three months and over 150 hours to complete. That was 150 hours without preparation and sketching time, or final sanding and polishing. The polishing took about 12 hours, or so.

Though I've always loved the minuteness of netsuke, I'd never realised just how many hours went into making them. Using power tools for some of the work might have reduced the time, but I'd determined to complete all the process by hand, from sawing the wood-block to final polishing. I can't see how else a craft can be learned, initially; power tools may or may not come later.

Welcome

2009-03-25T16:46:00.000-07:00

Calling this blog "Netsuke Now" might be being a bit previous as I'm new to carving (though not to other artwork) and only have one and a half under my belt so far - plus a folder full of ideas, sketches and photos, plenty of materials and tools and the folly of beginner's hope. Give me a lifetime or so and I might, with luck and a good deal of application, have many more. Though I've got through the daily finger-cutting stage, I've still much to learn and will be sharing what I discover via the blog.

So, how did I come to be enamoured of netsuke? I've always loved miniatures, even as a child. A friend of my father collected netsuke and introduced them to me (rather than me to them!) when I was under ten. Though I wasn't allowed to touch them, I was allowed to view them in their glass cabinet for what seemed like hours. My main longing was to hold one, but that didn't happen for a number of years.

We lived a bus ride's journey from the South Kensington museums in London and I spent many Sunday afternoons in the Victoria and Albert Museum, drinking in netsuke, snuffboxes, tapestries and Islamic and Chinese pottery. My brothers, of course, sneered and spent their time at the nearby Natural History, Science and Geological Museums!

At college, I made a friend whose father collected netsuke and he spent many hours with me, teaching me about when they were made and who made them, while letting me handle them. Occasionally, we went to viewing days at auctions, including Christie's and I still have the catalogue of one 1983 sale at Sotherby's. For years after, every museum, here and abroad, that I went to, I searched out if they had netsuke. There was always a feeling of disappointment if they didn't.

I never had the resources to buy the antiques, or even good contemporary ones, so I collected a few, cheap, modern copies, but only those that showed evidence of real skill with carving, so I could study the techniques and make further decisions about what type I really like. Mainly, my tastes are for fine though not over-decorative carving, also for very simple shapes that rely on the beauty of the material for their effect and for netsuke that show evidence of the carver exploring and experimenting with his material and his subject. I see no joy in any work of art that is just about production and doesn't show any development in technique or depth of content.

It didn't occur to me to carve them until about ten years ago, when friends of mine came back from a holiday in the States with a present of an epoxy resin cast of the little cat-geisha in the NY Museum collection. Not liking fakes, but having the chance to examine some of the artistry that way, I thought I'd like to try carving them. I collected some tools and wood, but life intervened and it wasn't until 2008 that I was able to take it up seriously. By then, I'd found three sites online, The Carving Path, Following the Iron Brush and the International Netsuke Society, all of which proved helpful for beginners, so with those, a number of books, some knowledge of composition, drawing and painting, and dyeing and staining, I started in on carving. Time will tell about how far it goes!