Well, the long marathon of building Mystique #15 is finally over - I finished up the final printing batch on Saturday. Yesterday was a lazy day of 'fill-in' work - I washed and cleaned all my brushes, spent rather more time down in the river than I perhaps should have, and then in the evening, started digging through my books and prints trying to come up with an interesting idea for #16.
Numbers 17 and 18 (the last two prints in the set) were decided long ago, so this will be the 'last chance' for including anything that I feel shouldn't be missed in this survey of traditional Japanese making.
So having said that, some of you may be a tad surprised when you see what it will be ...
I had an email (and a nice order!) this evening from a new fan of my work. Among other things, he mentioned that he had learned about my work by seeing a YouTube video.
I assumed that he meant that he had been watching something on my own (very small-scale) YouTube 'channel', but this turned out not to be the case. He sent me the link to the one he had watched - and it turned out to be a program from Japanese TV from nearly ten years ago, which somebody has excavated and uploaded:
Now this program is already on the web, on my own 'Woodblock Shimbun' website, but YouTube obviously attracts a lot more attention than woodblock.com! The program has been on the YouTube site for just around nine months, and has attracted over 27,000 views (so far).
Not quite in the league of popular cat videos, of course, with their multi-million views after only a few days, but I'll take whatever I can get!
But boy, it's painful listening to my bad pronunciation from those days ... (Yeah, like it's any better now!)
The final couple of impressions will need a bit of explaining, I guess.
The embossing of the outer margin is normally the final step in these Mystique prints. It needs to be done while the paper is still moist and soft, and yet if the paper is slipped back into the stack after making it, the moisture there will cause the paper to 'fluff up' in the embossed area, weakening the effect.
So I normally move the sheets directly from the embossing block to the drying process, and indeed, that is what I did this time. Here is the scan after embossing and drying:
But in the case of this print, we're not finished yet. There is still one step left - a metallic 'pigment' pattern.
I'm choosing to do this on dry paper for a couple of reasons: first is that if the paper were moist, and then put back into the stack after printing the metallic, the 'shine' on the impression would be reduced somewhat. It loses glisten. But more important is that if the paper is moist, any metal powder that falls in an area where it is not needed can not easily be removed, as it tends to stick in the paper crevices. The entire area near the pattern ends up with a metallic 'glow'. Doing it on dry paper makes it much easier to brush away unneeded powder.
I recorded a segment of the printing session, and it can be seen on Ustream. It's pretty simple:
roll on a light coating of ink (I used a standard litho white)
take the impression
place the print face up and scoop on a tiny amount of the powder
brush (spread) this over the area
brush off the excess
put a thin sheet of protective paper on the block
put the paper back in place and rub with the baren to 'set' the metallic into the ink
done ...
Here's a closeup of the result:
Here's our final scan ...
And the final print itself (waiting for trimming, checking, signing, sealing, packaging ...)
I'm very happy with how this one has turned out, and I think the collectors will be too.
After a couple of days of deskwork, it'll be time to moisten another hundred or so sheets, and do it all over again!
Just one today ... the background finally goes in:
This leaves us with just two left - the embossing around the outer border and a decorative 'spider web' pattern in the 'blank' area of the kimono. But there isn't time to do those today, as I have to take a quick trip to visit printer Tetsui-san. Followers of the Mokuhankan Sensafuda project can guess what that means ... Yes, we're nearly there with the Summer set! Tetsui-san has done the first test printing, and is ready for me to come over and make some decisions with him.
If I get a minute after I get back, I'll post a quick report over on the Conversations ...
This one might not jump out at you at first ... it's a small gradation up on the comb - another of the impressions that is building up to (eventually) make that part of the print transparent:
Next up is an easy and quick one ... a dark green tone on the clothing area. This overlays the blue that was there, turning it into a darker tone:
We're getting closer; perhaps there are five left, not quite sure ...
Another day ... two more impressions. Although as one of them was a 'double', it was more like three ...
First up was the first actual 'colour' in the kimono, a blue pattern with white lines carved out, and some 'leafy' patterns that will be overprinted later on with another colour:
And then the double impression of red, with the inclusion of a 'dab' of colour on her lips (was that really how lip colour was applied at that particular time?):
There are two ways to do such a double impression: with the second hit following immediately after the first impression, or following later (as though it were a separate impression). For such a small area, the first method is usually the best; for wide areas that are going to involve a lot of moisture going into the paper, it's better to wait until things have settled down a bit before doing the second coat.
This next impression was one of the most difficult I have ever done. It's a multi-step process, similar to the grey undercoat of the hair: moisten the gradation zone, rub pigment over the block just nudging up to that area, wipe off the edge with a wet tissue, then gently feather the joint with an empty brush. But compared to the grey block, the gradation zone on this one is far narrower ... in places only a few millimeters wide. It needs a very steady hand when pushing that pigment forward ...
The next one was trivial in comparison ... one of the tones to give shape to the comb:
Tomorrow we'll start to add more actual colour ...
Two more impressions today (actually one was started last night, and only finished up this morning while I was working with Tsushima-san ...)
They are both pretty straight-forward; the first undercoat for the transparent comb. (It doesn't look very transparent yet, but there are still three more impressions to follow up there):
And a base coat for an area that will have a complex pattern later:
The next impression also took quite a bit of time - this was the 'under coat' for the hair:
The impression itself doesn't seem so complicated; here's a rough pull from the block:
But it's actually not so straightforward. First the block has to be moistened in the gradation area. I then dab some pigment at the back of the head. Using a fairly large brush, I then rub the pigment out smoothly, gently 'pushing' it towards the area of gradation, but not running that far. Next step is to use a folded 'wet tissue' to wipe right along the edge of the block, cleaning any pigment off that area. Printing it like this would leave mixed results, so one last step is to use another (clean) brush to gently feather the area where the colour ends. The impression is then taken.
Just one impression to update today; as usual, other work got in the way ... (are you waiting for the summer newsletter? :-)
This was a critical impression - putting in the pupils:
On the same block are some hair 'fill-in', and the darkening of the main kimono lines.
The reason for doing this one now, rather than later on, is that there is absolutely no margin for error on the eyes; the registration has to be absolutely perfect. By doing it now, I am avoiding any possible problem from paper distortions that may arise when rubbing out some of the deeper colours. Not to mention that it's best to do it under the same weather conditions as the keyblock. It's damp and rainy here today, as it has been for a few days now, but if it were suddenly to become sunny and dry, it would be difficult to get the paper into exactly the same condition it was when the key was printed.
For most of the impressions, there will be enough 'play' that I needn't think that deeply about it, but the eyes are different ...
After more delays and interruptions than I can believe have happened over the past couple of weeks, printing of Mystique #15 is finally under way!
And under way with a difference ... Look at this!
Yes ... I'm printing the key block in oil-based ink. (I had the webcam set to 'record' during a half-hour or so of the session, and the video can be seen on the Ustream website here. I kept up a little bit of a running commentary as I worked ... explaining what was going on.)
Using inks rather than water-based pigment for the keyblock was very common back in the Meiji era. At that time, publishers were experimenting with all manner of printing methods, searching for ways to fit the new press technologies into their work flows. A great many prints (most of the kuchi-e for example) were done this way - with metal key blocks and normal cherry wood colour blocks.
The print that I am reproducing this time was originally done that way, so this is a good opportunity for me to learn how to do it.
Something else to mention before I show you the result of the first impression is that a great many parts of the design visible here will be 'covered up' with subsequent printings. The hair mass will have two more overprintings, with gradations around the side of her face, and the main thick lines of her kimono will also be overprinted. So what I'm aiming for at this point is simply a clean (and light) impression on the face and delicate hair tracery. Even her pupils will be put in later with another block.
Anyway, here's the first impression (the border outlines were done before I started, as usual):
Let's have a closer look at the hair (clickable):
The next few impressions should be: the pupils, the hair undercoat, the hair overcoat. But unfortunately, the paper was a bit too damp when I began work this morning, and I wasn't sure of being able to control it as well as I would like. So I switched to one of the colour blocks, something much less 'critical', and easier to handle:
