The woodblock at right was used to print the woodcut at left, specifically the lightest purple area where the shore meets the blue water of the creek. Each color in the image was printed from a differently carved woodblock. Arthur Wesley Dow was a devoted student of Japanese woodblock printing and traveled to Japan in 1903. "Marsh Creek", created shortly after the trip, is one of Dow’s simplest compositions, evoking an expanse of space with only a handful of shapes and colors.