Aspen

This print depicts an aspen tree study, likely focused on the distinctive vertical pale trunks with their characteristic dark eye markings against textured bark. Lyon's mokuhanga practice, developed after his studies with Hiroki Morinoue beginning in 1996, frequently translates photographic source material into woodblock through CNC-routed blocks—a hybrid process retaining the hand-printing tradition of baren-burnished impressions on dampened washi while employing computer-controlled carving for fine tonal gradations difficult to achieve entirely by hand. Bokashi gradations would render the soft transitions between trunk and shadow, while a close-valued palette typical of his nature subjects emphasizes textural detail over chromatic variation. The work continues Lyon's investigation of how Western photographic vision can be reconstituted through Japanese print methodology, positioning him within the contemporary mokuhanga community that grew out of Morinoue's circle and the international Mokuhanga Conference movement, where Lyon has been an active participant since the early 2000s.