Continued from [Forest in Summer - 12] | Starting point of the thread is [Forest in Summer - 1]

Here are the next few impressions.

It's going a bit slowly - the main reason for that is the extremely high humidity here this week. The rainy season was 'officially' declared over in the Kanto region a few days ago, but somebody forgot to tell the clouds!

We've got one of those stationary fronts parked over Japan at present, and the rain has been pretty much unceasing; down in the west end of the country there have been dozens of fatalities from floods and landslides. No danger here in the urban area, but it does make it difficult to control the moisture in the paper. Especially with these wide impressions, the paper really tends to get soggy.

So after each impression, I put slips of dry paper in between the printing sheets to try and pull some of the excess moisture out. It's difficult to get it exactly right ...

Anyway, here is the third tone on the tree area:

... and the fourth:

It looks interesting, doesn't it! Makes me think I should abandon all the other colours that I have planned, and make this a 'sepia' print!

But now that I've got the tree this far, I can see that the depths on these tones are not all correct, and - because I am an experienced hiker! - I know which way to go to fix them ...

Hiking?

Yes! Although I haven't done such a thing in more than thirty years, I did enjoy a lot of hiking/backpacking when I lived in Canada. I took trips with friends of course, but now and again I went 'out there' by myself. The longest trip I made was a one-week solo backpack in the Manning Park region of southern British Columbia. I had the Greyhound driver drop me off at a place of my choice along the highway, and then headed up into the mountains, into an area with no established trails or routes.

Six days later I emerged (safely!) at the park office, and got another bus home. I had prepared well for the trip, and had studied techniques of back country 'navigation'. One kind of 'trick' that I learned was that when taking a compass bearing on a distant destination, and then heading off for it, you never try and 'shoot directly' at your target, but you make an intentional error on one side of it. For example, suppose you are heading for a river, intending to locate a particular place where it is narrow enough to cross easily. If you head directly for that spot, then when you arrive at the river but find that you are a little off, you have no idea which way to head to find the crossing.

But if you have intentionally plotted a path that will strike the river a bit upstream (or whatever) from the intended spot, then you know when you get there that your target is almost certainly downstream.

And so it was with this print. I knew that the fourth tone level would be a strong black. No problem there. But I didn't know where to 'place' the second and third. It is extremely difficult to get them correct, because the visual appearance is completely different once the fourth level is in place. So I used my hiking experience and made my 'error' on the light side, knowing that if indeed I didn't get it right, I would then know which way to go to fix it.

And so it turned out; levels two and three are indeed wrong, and yes, they are too light. But that's easy to fix - one more impression of level two:

... and once more (lightly) for level three:

Now that's a tree with some nice depth to it!

We're not finished with this tree yet, but there is no way that I can properly gauge the next tone value until the greens are in place. I'll start them tomorrow morning.

I also have to report that the paper - Echizen Hosho from Ichibei Iwano - is handling very well. We've had six full-bodied impressions now, with any number of ups and downs in the moisture level of the paper, and the registration is still holding tight, razor sharp - on every single one of the 112 sheets in the stack!

Let's look at a couple of closeups (ruler is showing millimeters). The first one is in the corner near the registration mark:

... and the other is at the other end of the paper, far from the mark:

In both cases, I've still got delicate 'hair-line' areas staying open, even though six impressions now surround them. This is good paper! (And it's also a pretty nice demonstration of just how accurate the very 'simple' Japanese corner registration technique is!)

The thread continues in [Forest in Summer - 14] ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 10:04 AM | Comments (5)

Continued from [Forest in Summer - 11] | Starting point of the thread is [Forest in Summer - 1]

Printing is now underway, and the first two impressions are done:

... and ...

Printing one directly over the other in sequence is not the way I want to do this, but my hand is being forced by the tightness of the registration this time.

What I would normally do is print the first base tone on the tree, then next perhaps print part of the open 'v' space you see there. This would help keep the moisture balance even across the sheets, and the general quality of the impressions would be better. Printing right on top of another impression right away can be difficult - if there is too much water in the paper, the next impression won't 'take' properly.

But for this print, because the registration is razor tight, I want to do the four impressions of the tree trunk one on top of each other before I add the grass in the open spaces. This will let me clearly see how they are lining up; once the grass stuff gets in there, the edges will all be far less visible and sharp.

But already - with only two impressions done - the paper is now far too saturated. Early this morning - before brekky - I went down there to test it, and finding it too damp, put some interleaving sheets between each pair of sheets in the stack.

But when I went down to start printing around nine, even through the interleaves had become completely damp themselves, there was still too much moisture overall. So I pulled them out, and replaced them with a fresh dry batch.

(Wow ... three paragraphs in a row with ... 'but' ...)

Anyway, as I write this, the stack is settling. Hopefully, it'll be ready to go soon ...

The thread continues in [Forest in Summer - 13] ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 10:10 AM | Comments (0)

The paper is trimmed, the corners reinforced, and it's all moistened and in the stack ready for printing!

I can't start work until the moisture has evened out through the batch though, so maybe there is time for a RoundTable posting this afternoon. Might be fun to fire up my Zoom recorder, clip a mic to my shirt, and take a walk ... (Can you stand another one of these dictated stories?)

"Good afternoon everybody. I guess this might be a bit difficult, but I'll give it a try.

My name is David Bull, and I'm ... I'm ...

I could never have imagined that I would ever be part of one of these groups - all these people sitting in a circle in chairs, standing up one by one to introduce themselves ... to talk about their problem.

Those of you who have been a member of this group for a while, probably know how difficult it is for someone to be here for the first time. It seems that the first step in solving a personal problem like this is ... admission, but I wasn't able to do that ... Because I'm ... I'm ....

My name is David Bull, and I'm a procrastinator.

So of course I wasn't able to seek out help like this. But a friend of mine - somebody who cares a lot about me - had heard of this group - Procrastinators Anonymous - and arranged for me to come here today.

Some of you who know me, will be very surprised to find out that I'm a procrastinator. After all, look at the stream of work that I have put behind me so far! Hundreds and hundreds of woodblock prints, in thousands of copies! A newsletter coming out like clockwork four times a year; a new story every week in my A Story A Week series. Books ... constant website updates ... a river of production! Surely this is not an indication of a ... procrastinator.

But there are some things that a person looking from 'outside' can never understand. A person looking from outside can see the output - the things I have produced - but has no idea what I am really capable of producing. The person inside, and the man in the mirror, knows very well what the true story is.

And this person inside, knows beyond doubt that he is wasting huge amounts of time most days. Wasting actually, most of his time on this planet.

We sometimes try to compare ourselves with other people. Such a comparison can be useful, or it can be misleading. I was thinking the other day about Mozart; he died at - what was it, 35? - and left behind this vast quantity of wonderful production. But it's not really fair to compare ourselves to 'strange geniuses'; Mozart wasn't really a normal person.

Looking around for a better example, perhaps it might be the one I was reading about a while ago - the old author in England, Sir Walter Scott. He seems to have been a fairly normal guy. And we're told that when you put his entire output - all the books he wrote - on a single shelf, it ends up being meters and meters long. And this is a man who was working without any good tools; just pen and paper. Quill pen, for all I know. And yet somehow, he managed to produce an incredible quantity of work, work that certainly by the standards of his day, was recognized as being top level stuff.

Whether or not he felt that he was productive, or a procrastinator, I have no idea, but in my own case, it is really quite clear. Day after day, hour after hour, I do ... nothing. I sit and look out the window ... I 'think' about what I might be doing next ... I fiddle with this, and faddle with that ...

The internet has of course recently been part of this; I check email, browse here and there. But I can't blame this on the 'net; my behaviour long predates the presence of a computer on my desk. It's just a part of my daily existence. I do ... anything ... to avoid doing what I should be doing; to avoid work on the print I should be designing, the next newsletter I should be writing, the instruction book I should be planning ...

I've got this huge list of things that need to be done. Many of them need to be done! I've got a mortgage to pay, I've got deadlines to meet ... And yet getting down to it, just ... never seems to happen.

Some of you listening might be surprised to hear this. 'Dave, I thought you enjoyed your work! Don't you like making prints? Aren't you having fun doing all these things?'

And yes, this is the paradox, because that is perfectly true! I really do enjoy my work! I've got a beautiful workshop, a very short 'commute' to work each morning (down the stairs!), a 'perfect' environment ... And indeed, once things are moving, I'm quite content, and quite happy, not to say focussed and productive. But it's the process of getting any individual step up and running - a hundred times a day ... 'What should I do next, what's next?' - that is the problem. I couldn't imagine how much worse it would be if I didn't enjoy my work! My god, I'd never get around to things!

And beyond this is also a bit of a frightening thought ... not 'frightening'; that's a bit of a strong expression ... but ... what will happen a couple of years from now when my financial pressures are reduced somewhat, when my mortgage is paid off, for example (Countdown - 16 more months!)? When there is much less pressure to create income ... I might never get the next print out the door! Because inescapably, one of the main things pushing me to 'get things done' is the need for constant income. If nothing goes out, nothing comes in. Now that may sound like a horrible confession, but I suppose that's what today's meeting - sitting here in this circle of chairs - is about. Confessions.

One of the things I read somewhere about trying to overcome procrastination, was about using lists. You get up in the morning and make a list: 'These are the things I will do today,' and then you just work through it. Anytime you find yourself getting distracted, you come back to your list, pick it up, and say to yourself 'Right. It's just a question of discipline. I will now do this next job!' And I have to say that this does indeed work to some extent; this is one of the few techniques that is keeping me on track. I've got lists ... lists ... I've got lists of lists! My desk is littered with them - today's list, yesterday's list ... items checked off, circled, underlined, scribbled out ... Without aids like this I would never be able to move forward.

Another part of this problem is ... that this is not just a question of pure procrastination; it's a question of ... what's that expression ... 'Drowning in the Sea of Possibilities'. Man, there are so many things I want to do, over and above the things I'm doing as part of my normal work. It's very difficult to select something to work on. 'Let's see, I'll do this ... no, perhaps I had better get started on that.' I'll get up from my chair to start something, and then in mid-stride change my mind and switch to something else! 'Ah, before I can do that, this has to be done. No. Before I can do that, this has to be finished!' And it just goes on and on ... I look at the clock and see that I've been sitting there for an hour trying to decide what to work on!

The deadlines tie in with this. It's like juggling a bunch of balls. They go up, and they come down, but you have to grab the one that is nearest the floor, and get it back into play. Then grab at the next lowest one. This results in a completely chaotic approach to the work, and the carefully prepared list just gets ignored ...

Another whole aspect to this problem is not just this 'sea of possibilities', but the ... again, what's that expression ... 'The perfect is the enemy of the good.' I tell you, this is the story of my life! I don't want to claim that I am a real 'perfectionist'; I don't believe that is true. When I look at the work I send out, I can't in any way claim that anything has actually been done 'perfectly'. I've tried to do a good job, but of course anybody would do the same thing, whatever level one is working at.

But there is an undeniable thing that comes into play, that every time I am looking at a job, or anything that needs doing, I have an over-riding compulsion to find the 'best way' to do it. It might be the most efficient way, or the way that gets the most attractive result, or the way that needs the least maintenance later ... the word 'best' can have many conflicting definitions. But whatever it is, I want to find it! So, because of this I inevitably end up with 'No, can't do it that way ... there must be a better way ...'

The construction of my workshop is a fantastic example of this; I've been in there now for ... this is my ninth year. And yet, although it has managed to come to a point where I can actually do work there, it is far from either complete, or comfortable. The job facing me at the moment is the stairwell, and the accompanying ventilation ducts, and it's been ... what is it now ... two or three years since I got to the point where that was the next step. And I haven't done it, because even though I've made plans, and sketched sketches, and made lists, and created Plan A and Plan B ... the inevitable hesitation about choosing a method because I know that later on I'll think of a 'better' way to do it, results in ... total paralysis!

Meanwhile, look at my neighbour down the street, who is also a 'handyman' type, like me. During this same time period that I have been thinking about my stairwell, he has built an entire shop for his wife, who is a self-employed hairdresser. He sort of planned as he went along - the same sort of approach that I am using for my workshop - but he 'doesn't give a damn'. He just charges ahead any old way and does it. If two pieces of wood don't fit - bang them harder. Don't have enough of the right kind of paint - just mix something else for the last wall. And of course the result is not perfect; if a professional looked at it they would say 'That's a pretty funky job, you know ...' But. There is his wife, using the room and making a living as a hairdresser, and people come in and say 'Wow, what a neat place this is!' It's not 'perfect' of course, but it is eminently useable.

Back at the ranch here, Dave's workshop isn't 'perfect' either, but he still doesn't even have a staircase! So which of these two approaches makes more sense? You know the answer ...

Anyway, to those of you sitting in this circle here ... I have perhaps talked a bit too much about myself. I'm sorry. It's time for me to shut up and listen to some of the rest of you. Hopefully by hearing some of your experiences with these same problems (if indeed, they are 'problems', I don't know), I might be able to work my way through some of these issues that I am facing.

Thank you for listening, and I guess it's time to sit down ..."

Posted by Dave Bull at 10:01 AM | Comments (14)

Continued from [Forest in Summer - 10] | Starting point of the thread is [Forest in Summer - 1]

For those of you who haven't given up ... after all the interruptions ... here we are back at the printing bench.

But we're still not working on the Forest in Summer print just yet ... I have to get the book chapters ready for part-timer Ichikawa-san, so that she can start sewing. I printed out the body text pages at odd times during the past week or so, and got them all folded and collated a couple of days ago. But she also needs the cover sheets, and those take a fair amount of work too.

(For those of you not familiar with how I'm organizing this series, each print gets bound into a book, as illustrated here. Ichikawa-san and I do the entire process by hand, with me preparing all the components, and her sewing/pasting it all together. There is a page here, showing how the books come together.)

Anyway, one of my jobs is printing the decorative silver pattern on the book covers. Here's a quick snapshot of the printing set-up I use for this (clickable for enlargement):

The photo was taken standing on a stool looking down at the workbench. The blue cushion in the center is of course where I sit. The block - a pattern of pine needles - is positioned on a small printing stand that slopes slightly away from me, and which pulls forward over my lap after I sit in place with my legs down in the space below (full of chips of wood).

The printing paper is stacked face down on the wooden table in front of me (with my glasses and face mask on top). Here's the drill:

• I use the roller (by my left hand) to roll out a bit of ink on the ink board (a piece of acrylic plastic), and then onto the block (I'm using a standard white litho ink).
• I pull the top sheet of (dry) paper from the pile, put it into the registration marks, and then hold it carefully with one hand, while beginning to rub with the baren. (The baren is upside-down in this photo. It never gets left sitting right-side-up when not in use!).
• The paper is then pulled off the block, and laid face up on the dusting screen. (This is just a window screen sitting on top of a shallow cardboard tray.)
• You can see a small plastic bag of powder sitting near the low table. This is finely ground 'mother-of-pearl'. I use a small bamboo scoop to drop a tiny amount of powder onto the patterned area.
• I then use the very fine brush (goat, I think) to brush the powder over the printed pattern, and brush excess off the paper down into the tray, where it will be re-captured later.
• I work close to the fan, which is of course pulling excess powder out the window, and also wear a nice tight mask.
• Final step is to use a piece of tissue (slightly visible behind the screen tray) to gently wipe/dust off any excess powder from the surface of the paper.
• The sheet then goes onto the stack visible at lower right.

The thread continues in [Forest in Summer - 12] ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)

Continued from [Forest in Summer - 9] | Starting point of the thread is [Forest in Summer - 1]

Two weeks since the last update, but here we are - all 10 block faces are now done!

Let's start with the two that I showed you on the previous page; these are for the distant scenery:

... and the flip side:

Of course it isn't really clear yet just how this will look, but the general idea in my mind is to do this part of the print in a series of quite faint tones, to put it into a different 'plane' from the rest of the image.

Those two were 'easy', but there was no postponing what came next - the darkest highlight tone on the main tree trunks. It took me just over ten days (although if there had been no other 'distractions', it should have been done in maybe a week). I sure got a lot of nice BBC radio and iTunes listening done!

Next week when I'm doing the test printing, I'll find out if I 'got it right' when making the separations, but for now, it seems that this one should produce a pretty interesting effect ...

And then an easy one to finish off - the final two sides with a few miscellaneous areas (mushroom parts, blue jeans, etc.):

 

You can see on that last one where I moved part of the design around on the block, and cut a second set of registration marks; no sense wasting a whole new piece of wood just for that one part!

Here's the final update on the working hour totals:

1st block (image) : 17.5 hours
2nd block (image) : 17 hours
3rd block (image) : 15 hours
4th block (image) : 22 hours
5th block (image) : 32.5 hours
6th+7th blocks (image | image) : 9.5 hours
8th block (image) : 49.5 hours
9th+10th block (image | image) : 1.5 hours

In total then, I've spent 164 hours on this, spread out over 31 different days.

So with the carving done, will test printing begin tomorrow morning? No way. There's just too much other work waiting for attention. I usually keep my 'A Story A Week' stocked up around a month in advance, but that has slipped over the past weeks, and the one for next Sunday isn't even drafted yet. (Any ideas... requests?)

And of course the Inbox is stuffed, and you don't even want to think about my kitchen ...

So I'm thinking I might be back down in the workshop come next Monday or so ... we'll see ...

The thread continues in [Forest in Summer - 11] ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 12:42 PM | Comments (8)