To open this special series of prints - the Hanga Treasure Chest - I have used a design dating from the 1820's, created by a relatively unknown print designer - Teisai Hokuba, one of the pupils of Katsushika Hokusai. Over the years I have made quite a number of prints using Fuji-san as a theme; it seems such a natural choice for a New Year card, or to start off a set like this. I'm sure this won't be the last time we visit this mountain!

There will be 24 prints in this set, far more than in any single group of prints I have produced to date, so we can expect to see quite a wide range of themes appearing during the year. Landscapes like this one will make up a major part of the set, and they will be accompanied by figure prints, nature designs, and without doubt a good sprinkling of 'other', because I certainly don't plan to roll down the main highway of print history, but will poke around in the unexplored byways.

Before we go any farther in the series, I must mention something about the display box which I have sent you for storing the prints. The box incorporates a display stand, but please remember that woodblock prints are not capable of being permanently out in bright light. For a reasonable length of time, under average room illumination, a print displayed this way will not be damaged, but if one were to be left on this stand for years at a time, or even worse, in direct sunshine near a window, then it will definitely become faded.

So please keep this in mind when deciding where to place your box; mine is going to go on my desk near my computer screen, where it will be clearly in view, yet not where the sunshine can reach it. I am looking forward to changing the print every two weeks, as each new one arrives fresh off the printing bench. It should be quite fun, I think!

Thank you for joining my project this year!

David
January 31, 2005

(Here's the print in context in the Treasure Chest series.)

Posted by Dave Bull at 8:34 PM | Comments (0)

I don't anticipate a tremendous amount of activity at the Woodblock RoundTable. For one, I don't have all that many collectors! What I suspect will become the main 'thread' is a kind of feedback on the prints I send out. I don't intend that this should be a forum for "Great print this time Dave! Thanks!" kind of stuff. I like to see those in my email of course, but that is obviously not of interest to anybody else. But almost without exception, each time I send out a print - along with its accompanying story - I will get email(s) from collectors asking/telling/challenging/questioning/etc. some point or other to do with the print, or what I wrote about it.

So in order to further such communication, each time a print goes out (and up on the website) I will also post its story here. That will thus provide a way for the collectors to reply not just to me with their comments, but to share thoughts and ideas with each other (and whoever else might wander in to browse).

Over and above that, I haven't really got too much mapped out yet. We'll start off this way, with the print stories. I look forward to hearing what you have to say!

Dave

Posted by Dave Bull at 9:28 PM | Comments (0)

As though there wasn't enough material on the woodblock.com website to keep you occupied, today sees the introduction of this new section, the Woodblock Roundtable! Unlike all the other sections of the site, this one isn't just 'me to you'; this is where you can have your say too!

Any number of times during the years that I have been sending my prints out to collectors I have had people ask me such questions as 'What kind of people are collecting your prints?" or "I'd like to see what some of the other collectors think about this print ..." It seems that many of the collectors have a fair amount of curiosity/interest in what other collectors are thinking.

This has also become almost a regular event at the annual exhibitions: I will be talking with one of the collectors when another one comes into the room. I do a quickie introduction, and away they go ...

In the case of my foreign collectors, that sort of meeting just isn't possible, so that's what this 'roundtable' is for. Whether or not there will be enough interest among the collectors to make this thing 'fly' or not I can't say, but anyway, here it is for a start!

I see no reason to keep private whatever discussions may come to life here, so the RoundTable pages are open for anybody to browse. And for adding comments to the entries - let's start off with an 'open door' policy: the comments section found at the end of each entry will also be open for any interested person to add their viewpoint.

To start a new discussion topic though, will be a privilege reserved for my collectors, both present and past. Once the RoundTable is up and running, I will send them an announcement email with information on how they can log in to make postings.

Let's see how it goes!

Posted by Dave Bull at 9:27 PM | Comments (1)