Posted by Dave Bull at 3:15 AM, February 10, 2011 [Permalink]
If I still remember how ... printing of the Urashima Taro design now begins!
After Tuesday's school demonstrations, and yesterday's trip downtown to see young carver Sato-san (and Takahashi-san, the lady who is sponsoring his work at present), to discuss the senshafuda project, it's time to get back to the bench.
I'm on a very tight deadline now with this print, for a couple of reasons: the nominal schedule which the collectors have become used to is that each print is ready for shipping preparation by the 15th of each month, at which time I do all the invoicing. The 15th is obviously impossible this time, but the first batch of 100+ should be off the blocks by around a week from now, maybe the 18th. I would then normally get started on the second batch right away, but there is another 'distraction' coming up; I will be flying over to Canada on the 21st for a quick family visit with my parents, my girls, and the grand-sons. I haven't seen them all since last June, and a few months ago when I looked ahead to late February, I thought that the schedule might be a bit relaxed at that time, so booked the ticket.
Hah.
But it'll only be a short break, just seven days, and I'll then be back at it. So this print will be a few days late for everybody I guess, but the next one - which has yet to be carved - won't even begin production until somewhere around March7~8th at the earliest, so it can't possibly be ready by the 15th.
Well ... we'll deal with that when we get to it.
Anyway, three impressions on this one are now done. The first is the familiar outline around the image, and the second is a blank beta block to flatten the paper in the area where the image will fall (missing the outer border, which should stay thick and fluffy). So there is nothing to show for those two, but here is the result after the key block impression:
Tomorrow, we start to get colourful!
