Mystique print #15 is still at the test printing stage; and has been 'stalled' there for a few days now. Part of the delay has been that this one is not trivial in any way - it's far and away the most difficult print in this series (and will look it, too!) The boxwood block allowed a very fine level of detail to be carved, but such hard blocks are extremely difficult to print, as they don't 'drink' the moisture well. I'll have a little bit of a surprise to offer about that, once I've got it up and running ...

Another reason for the delay has been an interruption for work on the summer series of Senshafuda prints. This set is turning out to need a lot more work at the 'editing' stage than the initial group I published a few months back, and I've spent more time in Photoshop than I care to think about! But I worked out the final colour separations last night, passed them over to carver Sato-san this morning, and he is working full steam ahead.

And of course, a few mornings each week - time that should normally be my own prime working hours - have been spent coaching Tsushima-san the printer, who is coming along very well.

But it's not just print production issues that have been on the table this week. Me and my 'buddies' - the people who run such places as Toyota and Sony - have been watching the financial pages with a growing sense of impending doom.

It's the yen/dollar rate of course. Those of us who make a living exporting our products from Japan (more than 70% of my prints are going overseas these days) can do no more than sit and watch as the exchange rate moves into territory that would have seemed inconceivable just a few years ago.

Here's a chart of the change in the rate in the past year (since just after the beginning of the Mystique series) [clickable]:

The number in the lower right corner says it all - down more than 17% over that time. That, of course, is coming directly off my income. And there is no corresponding gain for me on the import side - I import nothing!

And when we look at the longer term, it's even worse. Here's the same chart extended back further in time, to a point nearly ten years ago, when I was making the Surimono Albums. The red box here is the same area as the first chart ...

More than 40%! (And remember, a 40% change in the exchange rate doesn't mean that my prints are 40% more expensive, it means that they would have to be priced 66% higher to bring me the same amount!)

Now Toyota has a sort of 'solution' for this - open factories in the US, and build the product right there in the market where it will be sold. Hah! Do you think I should put a 'Help Wanted' sign up ... in North Carolina or someplace like that?

Anyway, the point of the story ... I sure hope my US friends get their budget thing together, because if the US dollar really does go off a cliff, we're all going to be in very deep water, I think!

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:35 AM | Comments (11)

After a few days 'off' to catch up with other projects, carving resumed on Mystique #15 today. There are going to be a goodly number of impressions on this one, but to try and save wood as much as possible, I combined a number of the colour zones into groups - cutting more than one colour on each block.

Not quite sure how many there will be, but at the moment I have it down to ten 'faces', with I'm not sure how many actual colours.

And because the key block for this one was cut on a separate smaller block, unlike the 'double' blocks used for most of this series, the colour blocks can go down two-to-a-side, like this:

And now, a little sidetrack. Anybody watching the Webcam during this morning's carving session must have noticed something a bit strange. Dave mumbled something about feeling a bit 'hot', and then put his glasses down on the block and took a little break.

Some break! I took my camera with me ...

Here's the view looking left from the point at the bottom of my river steps. The small weir is at the upstream end of this little straight stretch of the stream:

And turning to look downstream:

Just at the point where the stream bends gently to the left in that photo, there is another small weir, matching the one we saw upstream, and kind of defining my 'territory'. If we go past it and look back, we can see this building in the 'distance':

I hung the camera on a tree branch ...

And although the webcam was still running back in the workroom, I couldn't resist ...

(I wonder just how late this print is going to be??)

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:54 AM | Comments (3)

Carving on this one has really moved along quite quickly. While chatting with Marc Kahn on the webcam for an hour or so this morning - solving the problems of the world - I cut most of the remaining areas, leaving only the most delicate zones ... the eyes, eyebrows, and hair.

The eyes will be last. Opening them up is traditionally the final step in carving a face like this. I'll do the eyebrows just before that, so for the rest of the day today, I worked my way steadily along the hairlines.

Here's what it looks like at the point where I broke off this evening (Oops! Don't use that expression, Dave!):

Let's move in a bit closer ...

And maybe even a bit closer (these are all clickable):

The wood is behaving very well. It's somewhat softer than I would like, but at least I can't complain about the grain - there effectively isn't any.

I ran the webcam during a bit of this, so you can get an idea of the general procedure by watching this archived session at Ustream.

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:35 AM | Comments (1)

Carving started this morning, on a nice piece of boxwood (laminate) that has been waiting peacefully in the storage room for somewhere north of ten years ...

I always feel a bit of a twinge when I pull out a block like that for use. I head up the stairs, pull out the box containing the blocks, select the one that seems right for this job, then put the rest back. I can't help feeling it's like a scene in a movie where a bunch of guys are on death row. Nothing happens for months/years, then one morning, they hear footsteps coming closer, keys jangling, then the door opening. Who will be the one chosen? !!

But perhaps on the other hand, they are all eagerly awaiting their turn to serve, and are disappointed when they are left behind ...

Here's a quick snapshot of the block when I came back from lunch. Next section due to be carved is one of the small poem cards (part of the kimono pattern).

It's pretty small. Here's a finger for comparison:

And that's a pinkie!

Something over an hour or so later - actually one and half programs from the BBC - we have a cute little poem in the wood (this shot has an enlargement)!

This is all 'warming up' ... and I keep looking over at the 'hair zone' nervously!

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:49 AM | Comments (2)

Well, there isn't any way at all that print #15 in this series is going to be finished by the (self-appointed) deadline of the 15th of this month, but that's not a factor this time - this print is going to be a bit 'special'!

Part-way through the production of the previous print in the series (#14) I made a bit of a change at one point - cancelling a plan to use mica powder on one of the blocks. People who had been following along with the process accepted my decision to do that, but some of them did express (slight) disappointment that they would thus miss a chance to have such a nicely decorated print in their collection. (I'll ignore the fact that somebody expressed it as "I would like to see some bling!")

So I kept that in mind when perusing my collection of prints and books looking for a suitable candidate for this next print. I should mention at this point that designs #17 and #18 (the last one) have been decided for quite some time, and I thus only have two spots left 'open' - 15 and 16. Looking back through the work done to date I see that although it is indeed quite a 'nice' set of prints, we don't really have anything kind of 'spectacular'.

Now, common sense right away jumps up and starts yelling in my ear, "Dave, don't even think about what you are thinking about! These are small-scale, quite inexpensive prints. People are getting very good value. 'Spectacular' isn't on the menu this time around. Save it. Do you hear me? Save it!"

But hey, since when has 'common sense' ever been allowed to have any input into my projects?

So ... as I said, print #15 is going to be a bit late. Let's see why ...

Those of you who have explored the 'new improved' Mokuhankan website in the past few weeks may have noticed that there is a new category of prints included in the catalogue - Partner Goods. No need for a long explanation at this point, but this is simply a chance to expose the print-related material of some people who I know and trust, and who otherwise have no chance for their products to reach overseas viewers.

One of the first entries in this category is a selection of old prints and books being offered by my friend Shingo Ueda. I was over at his place one day, and he showed me some very beautiful items. We chatted about the idea for a while, and I decided to put them into the catalogue ...

Anyway, that's no particular connection with my current Mystique series, but one of the items we studied that day - the 'Hana Moyo' album by Kiyochika - left me drooling in amazement at its beauty. What if I were to make a reproduction of one of those prints ... ?

Well, a massive project like that is completely out of the question at the moment, but I thought it might be interesting if I simply 'trimmed' an area from one of them, and incorporated it into my current series. And so that's what I did, and that's what this next print will be.

Here's a snapshot of one spread from the album - this is actually three standard o-ban prints side-by-side (clickable for enlargement):

I have selected just a small portion from the centre of this spread - a 'portrait' of the lady in the center, including her face and hairdo, and a bit of her highly-decorated kimono; maybe about like this:

Now I have to mention right up front - so that the collectors will not be disappointed when they receive their package - I am not making a line-for-line and colour-for-colour reproduction of this. It would need just too many blocks, and in any case, the reduction in size is going to preclude the inclusion of all the detail. But having said that, I think I should be able to produce something 'interesting'!

The hair on this print is done in a very interesting way. Instead of the 'typical' one-by-one hairlines, the Meiji-era men 'gathered' them into groups:

This is of course far more difficult to carve. Instead of the knife sliding off the end of each hair freely, it must now contend with 'bumping' into the other hairs. This will be 'fun'.

As Webcam watchers already know, tracing is nearly done. Here's the same area with the lines now carefully traced and cleaned up:

Carving should be under way sometime Tuesday (unless there are unexpected 'interruptions' from some of the other activities going on here recently!). Just when this thing will be finished is impossible to predict with any accuracy at present. Good cooking takes time!

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:00 AM | Comments (1)

Here's the shortest post of the year on this RoundTable ... just a simple short note to let you know that this is an 'anniversary' day for me - 25 years ago today I came to live in Japan.

A quarter of a century!

Story about this is here ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:08 AM | Comments (1)