"Hello, this is Tokyo woodblock printmaker David Bull. Every year at this time, I prepare a special package of one of my small woodblock prints, and offer it as a 'gift item'. But this year is a bit special - I am also planning a special dinner to kick off the gift print 'season'.

"We've all heard about those 'hundred dollar a plate' fundraising dinners, where you get to rub shoulders with somebody notable, while at the same time seeing your money go to a good cause. I'm going to up the ante. I have a great cause - my woodblock printmaking activities - and I've arranged for a couple of very special guests for this dinner: Mr. Bill Gates, and his good friend Mr. Warren Buffett. For a hundred dollars a plate? No way. This is going to be a very exclusive dinner. There will be only ten tickets available, and they are a hundred thousand dollars each. All in aid of this very good cause."

To hear David announce the rest of the details of this event, watch this video! (6 minutes - 12Mb), or visit the 'gift print' page with all the details here:

(If you have a blog, you are welcome to 'embed' this video on it. Use the little menu on the toolbar of this video, and 'copy' the embed code ...)

Posted by Dave Bull at 1:31 PM | Comments (5)

At last! Today I reached a major milestone ... the moment that every craftsman/artist waits for ever since he first puts his products on the market. Yes, today for the first time, the 'after market' price on some of my prints has topped my original sale price!

I just received a copy of the most recent catalogue from 'Yamada Shoten', one of the largest book/print dealers here in Tokyo, and found this item on page 34:

It's a complete set of my 'Small Print Collection' - the print set I issued in 2006. My original price was 20,000 yen for the set of ten prints (around $200), and they have listed it at 30,000 ... Woo-hoo! A 50% premium on my prices, and in only two years ... and I'm still alive! :-)

And now, a message from reality.

This is clearly a mistake. If they had done even the tiniest bit of research, they would have found that I still sell that set ... and still for the original price of 20,000 yen. But don't you go and tell them!

But it is very interesting to see this valuation; these people handle hundreds of prints daily, buying and selling all over the place. They know what stuff is 'worth'. So it's interesting to see that they must have looked at this set, flipped through it, thought about it a bit, and then put the 30,000 label on ...

Thanks guys!

Posted by Dave Bull at 12:43 PM | Comments (7)

Continued from [River in Autumn - 9] | Starting point of the thread is [River in Autumn - 1]

A couple of weeks since the previous update ... that's how long it has taken to get the first batch (of 110 sheets) done. There were a number of interruptions along the way of course, but as the weather here has turned markedly cooler, I was able to get it done before the paper 'gave up' ...

It's not dramatically different from the proof we saw in the previous post. I did try some changes: to the fire, to the reflection, and in some of the gradations, but nothing I did seemed to make any particular improvement ... so I decided to go with what we see here.

Posted by Dave Bull at 10:35 PM | Comments (8)