As I have reported over on the Mokuhankan Conversations blog, carving work on the 'Rickshaw Cart' print is proceeding smoothly. That is taking all my time and energy this week, so there is nothing much to report here on this blog covering my 'own' prints.
But I didn't spend the whole day alone ... I had a visit from the King! And good luck, my video camera was right there at hand ...
(But I have to warn you in advance - nothing 'spectacular' happens here, as I wasn't able to catch any of his fish-spearing acrobatics ... not this time, anyway!)
Arts of Japan series : print #2 - printing steps 12~14
The next three - the final three actual colours - are all small in area, but make a nice difference in the appearance. Let's put a thin gradation along the base of the ridge of the roof:
And at the bottom edge of the image, a darker tone to the wall there should give a bit more three-dimensionality to the near edge of the roof:
And then finally, the statue does need some shadowing. I wrestled a lot with this, trying some more 'dramatic' effects, before pulling back and leaving just a few light touches here and there. I think this approach is more suitable to the overall quiet and peaceful mood that we have created ...
That's it, except for the outer embossing block ...
Arts of Japan series : print #2 - printing steps 9~11
The next impression is perhaps not so obvious - it's a slight gradation on the green from the left corner ...
This one is much easier to see - let's add some clouds!
And although we're not finished with the image itself, it might be a good idea to do an impression on the opposite side of the sheet, to help keep the moisture in balance:
Keeping the blog up-to-the-minute hasn't been possible recently, but here's a catchup!
I'm finally busy with the printing work on the second print in the Arts series - the image of the Kamakura Daibutsu. It starts - as all of them do - with the series outline and title, quickly followed by the key outlines of the print itself (the two impressions are here shown together, because I forgot to scan them separately):
And the colour impressions then begin. I think there will be perhaps 15 or 16 of these, but as usual am not quite sure at this point.
The first one is an undertone on the building in the foreground:
And this is followed by the base tone of the greenery:
Hopefully - if I don't get interrupted by the trainees too much - there will be another couple of impressions tomorrow ...
The first impressions of the first print in my project to re-create the complete series of Katsukawa Shunsho's designs for the Hyakunin Issho (100 Poems from 100 Poets) came off the blocks on the 7th of January 1989. This was - coincidentally - the same day that the Showa Emperor died, the opening of a new era for Japan, the Heisei Era. According to my plans and calculations, it would take me probably ten years of work before reaching the final impression of the 100th print.
As things turned out, it was a pretty turbulent ten years. Not only was Japan coming down from the famous 'Bubble' era, my own life too took many twists and turns during that time, with my divorce coming early in the series, and some years later, my children moving over to Canada to continue their education in the more suitable environment there.
But although there were good years and there were difficult years, I kept steadily at it, no matter what else was happening around me, and work proceeded pretty much exactly as planned, with the 100th print finished in mid-December of 1998, exactly ten years after the first one.
Why do I bring up this 'history' now?
By the time the project was wrapping up, it was pretty much fully subscribed, with just about 100 people receiving each print. I held a large 10-day exhibition at the Gallery Takano in Shinjuku Tokyo, with the intent of showing off the series and of collecting subscriptions to the new print set I was planning - the Surimono Albums.
The exhibition got tons of media interest, and we drew very good crowds all through the entire run. And there were orders. Mountains of orders ... But not only for the new series, as I had anticipated, but also for the Hyakunin Isshu prints ... way beyond what I had left in stock.
So I began a second printing of the series, to run concurrently with my work on the Surimono prints, doing two each month. I accepted orders for these prints as complete sets of 100 only, to be shipped either two each month (for just about five years), or for one per month (taking just about ten years). Most of the people wanted the prints two-at-a-time, so I did the re-printing work on that schedule, finishing the work quite a few years ago.
But there were some who asked for one-at-a-time, and for these people, it took much longer to receive the entire set. I also took a few more orders at subsequent exhibitions over the next few years on a similar basis, and as it happens, those collectors received their final print just this month.
So now, for the first time since early 1989, I have nobody collecting the Hyakunin Isshu series. It is now 'history'. End of an era, indeed!
Honestly speaking, the series is really not something that is 'collectible' by an average person. We can't even fit them all in one photo!
Packed in their cases, it still takes up a giant amount of shelf space:
So you really had to be a pretty strong poetry fanatic to want the set, although luckily for me, in those years there were plenty of people matching that description here in Japan! It was this series that put me in a financial position to buy my house, not to mention feeding and sheltering my family for all those years.
All in all, making the Hyakunin Isshu series was an incredible experience, one that transformed my life, and I don't regret for an instant the day more than 23 years ago that I made the decision to 'go for it' ...
