Posted by Dave Bull at 2:11 AM, February 6, 2012 [Permalink]
The last few blog posts from here have all been over on the Mokuhankan Conversations side; time to update the Woodblock RoundTable too!
The occasion? Well, I'm unemployed again! :-)
Meaning, of course, that I have come to the end of another print series. The final impressions on the final print in the Mystique of the Japanese Print series were done this morning. The collector copies have actually all been sent out already; what I finished up today were the last of the ones that will be sent out as 'back numbers' as time goes by.
After I finished up my work, I grabbed my little point-and-shoot and shot a quick video of the scene behind my workbench ... I myself may be 'finished' for a while, but there is plenty of other work going on here today!
Let me introduce the three people you see there: Tsushima-san is the printer; she is working on the 'Plum Blossoms' print that is being offered as her 'Debut Print' this month. Details on this are in the upcoming newsletter, and I'll post about it over on the Conversations blog soon.
She's making two copies on each sheet of paper, printing them 'heads 'n tails'.
Behind her, Ishigami-san is packing newsletters, putting the ones for domestic shipment into clear envelopes. She'll do the ones for overseas delivery tomorrow ...
Next to her at the long stand-up table, Yasui-san is packing some of the prints that I have just finished making. I finished that batch last night, and she has taken them out of the drying boards, and is mounting them ready for storage, and later posting to collectors. You can see how we use a little jig for scoring the story paper so that the print mounting board fits neatly inside.
All that's missing in this little video is the guy at the main printing bench ... but as I said, his work is done for a while. He'll be taking the rest of this month 'off' from printmaking, while he gets the next series planned and ready for production, and of course also works on the new Mokuhankan projects that have been discussed over on the Conversations.
Thanks for watching! [For those curious, the music we were playing in the background is the Japanese guitar duo 'Gontiti' - pronounced 'Gonchichi']
