Craftsmanship of Lunar New Year Picture
木版年画的工艺

木版年画在中国历史悠久，最早出现在宋代，距今已经有一千多年的历史了。木版年画在中国有众多流派，从制作技巧方面可以分为木版套色，半印半绘，纯手工绘画等多种方法。

此次我们体验的便是半印半绘技法，从起稿，构图，再到描画，上版，搓纸，刻版，洗版，润纸，修版，试色，砑印，我们手中每一张墨画均经历了十多道工序方才制成。与套色年画不同的是此次画稿后期的需要我们手工依次上色完成作品。

中国木版年画各地色彩使用习惯各有特色，但总体基本都是墨色加五到六种彩色颜料，常用的色彩为大红、藤黄和草绿，辅以粉色，紫色，蓝色等。

​

虽然常规意义上是半印半绘的技法，但在我们创作过程中，也不必拘泥于形式，可以大胆的尝试用单一色调进行平涂，创造出崭新别样的风格。

​

Woodblock New Year pictures have a long history in China. They first appeared in the Song Dynasty and have a history of more than a thousand years. There are many schools of woodblock New Year pictures in China, which can be divided into woodblock coloring, half-printed and half-painted, pure hand-painted, and other methods in terms of production techniques.

This time we experienced the technique of half-printing and half-painting, from drafting, composition, drawing, printing, plate rubbing, engraving, plate washing, paper embellishment, plate revision, color testing, calendering, every detail in our hands Each ink painting has gone through more than ten processes before it is made. The difference from the colored New Year pictures is that we need to manually color in order to complete the work in the later stage of the drawing.

​

The color usage habits of Chinese woodblock New Year paintings have their own characteristics in different regions, but the overall color is basically black plus five to six kinds of color pigments. The commonly used colors are scarlet, gamboge and grass green, supplemented by pink, purple, blue, and so on.

​Although the traditional technique is half-printing and half-painting, we don’t have to stick to the form in our creative process. We can boldly try to use a single color for flat painting to create our unique style.