Posted by Dave Bull at 7:55 AM, September 2, 2010 [Permalink]

I sent out the summer issue of my newsletter a few days ago, and one of the stories inside gave an overview of the recent experiments in paper sizing. In the story I mentioned how I had had trouble obtaining a brush to do this job - none of the brush makers still in business were willing to make a full-size brush for me, as this is pretty much a defunct business.

But look at the email that showed up yesterday - from Richard Steiner in Kyoto!

But the reason I am writing now is that you said you could not find a wide enuf brush, so you have to cut your sheets in half. Many years ago, I visited a paper-making village in northern Shikoku (forget the name now, but they are good and inexpensive; many families doing the paper making, a similar arrangement as we find in Etchizen). We stayed overnight, so got to know nearly everyone there. In this town there was a sizing kobo, a large scale operation. On the day we were there, they has just received delivery a couple days earlier of a sizing machine which they had designed and had make somewhere. They were testing it out. A long machine, nearly fully automatic. Very cleaver design, with sprayers located above and below the moving sheets of washi. One man loads the hamper at one end, and another man (could be the same man) removes the sized paper at the other end.

Anyway, in another part of the building was where the traditional sizing was carried out. I saw a brush that had been thrown away and asked about it. Because the handle had split, it was too difficult to use. I asked if I could have it to use as decoration for my studio. OK, he said. And so it has served that function for many years.

But after reading your article, I thot that perhaps the brush would like to go back into service. I had already wrapped cord around the split, and so solved the initial problem. (Why they hadn’t thot of this, I don’t know.) Here are some photos of the brush. It is about 42 cm wide. If you think you can use it, I will mail it to you. Try it out. If it works, keep it. If it does not work, send it back to resume being a room decoration, or you put it up on your wall as an objet.

It was a dedicated sizing brush, so I am sure the hair and its thickness are correct. Let me know if you would like to try it.

I of course immediately wrote back to Richard, expressing my interest, and the brush itself showed up a few minutes ago:

There is good news and bad news about the brush.

It is in fine condition overall - the split in the handle is basically of no consequence at all. The hair is in perfect condition; I had been afraid that it wouldn't have been washed and cleaned on the day that they tossed it aside, but it was, and the hair is fine. The width - known in Japanese as 一尺三寸 (about 42 cm) - is wide enough (just barely) for a standard sheet of washi of the most common dimension (the ones that I am currently using, and cutting in half for sizing.)

So this certainly looks like a 'keeper'!

But there is a bit of 'bad news' too. Inspecting it carefully, I found this at the base of the hairs:

Mold.

Untreated, this is a deal killer. No way can we have active mold present in our brushes, either the ones for printing, or for sizing. The prints would never have a chance for long-term survival.

So I'm going to prepare a formaldehyde bath, and put this thing under to soak for a while. I'll then remove all the visible mold, soak it more, dry it off, then repeat. I'm sure I'll be able to get rid of the visible mold; the danger will be in what is left up at the roots of the hair mass.

But it's worth a try, as this is such a treasure! Thanks very much to Richard for being willing to put this back into service! [Richard's web site is here]

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [1]

Posted by Dave Bull at 8:35 AM, September 1, 2010 [Permalink]

Whole bunch of things are cooking this week, so it's another 'grab-bag' update ...

First, I've had a bunch of emails asking about the Playboy story. I wonder why! I have to tell you up front that this is nothing to do with typical 'Playboy' material. As I mentioned, they do a regular feature grabbing a few people who do a particular job, and put their 'data' up so that readers who are considering that field as a career can get a bit of an inside look at it.

Anyway, it's done, and the data for seven of us was published in the magazine yesterday. A scan is on this page of the Woodblock Shimbun section of the website. As it turned out, I am the oldest of the seven; the others are doing 'chalk art', 'spray art', acryl, and western painting. The lady directly above me on the page bills herself as being an 'Artist for Eros and Peace', which I guess might explain why this magazine chose her ...

Moving right along ... :-)

The Summer issue of the Hyakunin Issho newsletter is now online: [English] [Japanese].

It includes a story on the recent sizing experiments, and that leads me to the next item in this update ... the NHK project.

The producer was over here again today for another planning session. This is good news, as I have learned that the more time we spend in planning, obviously the better the finished program will be. But it actually caused a problem today.

I had done another batch of sizing this morning, for the paper for the second batch of printing on the 5~6 pair, and got it all hung up for drying just before he arrived. It's a dry hot day here, so I left the windows open up there just a smidgeon, so that the paper would begin to dry slowly.

During our conversation, he asked about the sizing (having seen it in the newsletter) and we went upstairs to look.

!!

It was bone dry. Every sheet, bone dry. And because it had dried too quickly, here's what it looks like:

Very wrinkled and distorted - exactly what I had been warned against. It dried too quickly.

I can't blame the NHK guy for this, as I myself would almost certainly have waited that long before checking anyway. But it's one for experience ... watch the weather, and crack those windows open/shut accordingly!

Anyway, as for the program, they'll be here for a couple of days in a couple of weeks for filming, and I'll then also be going to their studio on the 30th of the month for the 'studio guest' part of the show. Broadcast is unknown yet, but will be in January, on NHK cable channels overseas, and (probably) on the internet (although that will be a one-shot 'live' deal, and if you're in an inconvenient time zone, tough luck ...)

In other small update news, the 5th print in the Mystique print - the Hasui design - is online on the website, and seems to be in the hands of most of the collectors.

I can also mention that I have updated the A Story A Week website. I have heard from various people that they have had trouble putting comments on the stories, so I rebuilt the commenting system over there to make it match what we have here on the RoundTable. So there is no more excuse for not leaving your comments/criticisms on the stories now!

And finally, the 'countdown' is still clicking away!

Discussion [0]

Posted by Dave Bull at 6:59 AM, August 25, 2010 [Permalink]

I'll have block images, etc. from the new print - the Sukenobu reproduction - for you shortly, as I am now in the final stages of 'touch up' carving.

But there has been a short interruption (where have you heard that before!), and it might be interesting to mention it here.

I was reading my Japan Times at breakfast the other day as usual, and it was the day for their weekly feature in which they focus on some kind of 'interesting' person in Tokyo. I've been featured there more than once over the years, and this time it was one Mr. Urushibara. I didn't read it all, but quickly skimmed over the beginning section; he seemed an interesting person - born in England to Japanese parents long before the war - who has made a life as cultural interpreter and translator.

After I finished the newspaper, I went down to the workshop, fired up the webcam, and got busy with the carving. The computer down there is also doing an automatic 'mail check', in case anything important comes in during the day, and when I scanned over the list of emails at break time, I noticed a Google Alert: woodblock printmaking.

Funny, it was pointing to that same story in the Japan Times! But that person hadn't been a woodblock printmaker, had he?

I followed the link to the online version of the story, and instantly regretted how carelessly I had skimmed it while eating breakfast. Mr. Urushibara isn't just Mr. Urushibara. He is the son of Yoshijiro Urushibara, the Japanese craftsman who went to London in 1910, and stayed for the next 30 years, passing on information on printmaking skills to a number of the early British woodcut artists: Walter Phillips, Alan Seaby, John Platt, etc. ...

I fired off a note to the reporter immediately, asking to be put in contact with Mr. Urushibara, and she did the job. Long story short, I'll be heading off to Tokyo in the morning, to meet him for lunch. He has already warned me that he doesn't have much knowledge of printmaking, as he was of course only a child during those years, but that's OK. There is very little known about the 'who' and 'why' of Urushibara-san's time in London, and I'm sure his son can help fill in some of the blanks. I'll take my recorder, and if he will permit, will put it on the table while we talk ...

I'll let you know more as I learn it!

Discussion [9]

Posted by Dave Bull at 3:57 AM, August 16, 2010 [Permalink]

There certainly hasn't been much time this past week to sit around posting to this RoundTable; with 130 sheets of paper in the stack, nearly 20 impressions on the design, and the thermometer rarely going below 30C, even at night, it has been a question of 'every minute counts'.

But last night saw the final (embossing) impression, and the stack is now dried, trimmed, and ready for inspection and signing. And yes, it is still a kick - even after all these years - to have them all in a stack like this ... before they fly off around the world to their new homes!

I should perhaps mention something about the sizing - after all, this is the first time I have ever made a batch of prints on paper that I sized myself. The results were mixed. One the one hand, the experience was very positive - the paper printed very nicely, was completely stable through the entire process, and was very receptive to the pigments. But there were a couple of negatives: one was that the lack of sizing on the back side of the sheets (this was my choice) meant that I constantly had to use a protective sheet under the baren, and this is big nuisance when doing a lot of printing. The second problem was the inconsistency from sheet to sheet, due completely to my inexperience at brushing the sizing onto the paper.

So next time I'll have a go at doing 'both sides' sizing, and hopefully my brushing technique will steadily improve, so these negatives should at some point be a thing of the past!

Next job at hand will be to finish up the tracing of the sumizuri image (#6), and get going on the carving. (Again, these first batch of these two prints are being made separately; the second batch will be done together, as planned ...) Before that though, I have to get the summer newsletter written and produced, and catch up with all the waiting office work (invoicing, back issue shipping, etc.)

And there will be a bit of an interruption tomorrow, as some people are coming for an interview and photos for a magazine story. I mentioned in the comments the other day that when their request came in I had to laugh. "You want me? Really?"

Yep. People from Playboy (Japanese edition) are coming over tomorrow ...

Discussion [6]

Posted by Dave Bull at 7:17 AM, August 3, 2010

This thread about paper sizing is continued from here, and started here.

So, here we are with what - I hope - will be the final entry in the sizing saga. I ran the batch this morning, and by just before noon, they were all dry. Here they are, hanging in my bedroom upstairs:

 

The job went pretty smoothly, and because there were 60 sheets in the batch - compared to the previous test batches of just a few sheets each - I was able to really get a much better 'rhythm' in the work. Some things I learned:

• I'm not 'strong' enough to make a good full stroke with just the arm, as the brush really has a lot of resistance on the surface of the paper. Shifting from one foot to the other as I move across the sheet (shifting the body weight), really helps keep it moving smoothly.
• The 'angle of attack' of the brush on the paper is critical. Too vertical and the sizing all dumps out quickly. Keeping the angle lower helps control the flow of the liquid steadily.
• After dipping and wiping the brush, you have to hold it horizontally in the moments before you make contact. If held vertically, it not only tends to drip, but all the liquid gathers at the tip, and then gets 'dumped' right away. Holding it horizontally until the very last second seems to help with this.

In the interests of 'keeping my options open', I sized only the front surface of the sheets. The tests the other day which had just a single face sized were no problem, so I'll give it a try this way first. If something goes wrong at printing time, I can always dry the paper off, size the back side, and then resume ...

So it should be time to move on to the printing, but unfortunately there has been another interruption. Some people from NHK are coming over tomorrow to discuss an upcoming show they want to do with me. I don't have many details yet, but this one should be of particular interest to RoundTable readers, because it is intended for NHK's overseas networks, and the program (30 minutes proposed) will be in English.

* * *

In the meantime I'll 'keep busy' by getting started on the keyblock for image #6, the one that shares the block with the Hasui image we saw earlier.

First step is to scan an original of the print, and then trace all the key lines with my tablet. Here's what it looks like so far:

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [9]

Posted by Dave Bull at 8:27 AM, August 2, 2010

This thread about paper sizing is continued from here, and started here.

After the non-committal results from yesterday's 'strip' test, I tried something a bit different today. After the half-dozen sheets from the sizing run were dried, I cut some pieces from each one and headed down to the workshop to make a real test - using some of my blocks to make actual prints, not simply test strips.

This was much more enlightening. We can dispense right away with the kind of comment I heard yesterday - about how good I am at this. This is very poorly sized paper!

It was apparent right away, as I started moistening the blank pieces before printing. Parts of each sheet took up the moisture far too rapidly, while others areas were more like what I am used to. Even after letting them sit under cover for a couple of hours to even out, they refused to do so. It seems as though there are areas that are almost 'unsized', and those places just suck up the water far too much.

I waited until it seemed to have reached a basic stability, then made a run of half-dozen copies of one of the little Gift Prints I have:

And here we have another surprise ... Even though the paper was clearly not 'good', the resulting prints came out just fine. And after they were dry it was impossible to find the areas that had been causing problems with moisture absorption.

So ... I guess I can see where this is going. I now know that I can produce prints on paper that I have sized myself, but I can also see very clearly that I really have to get the brush motion down much more smoothly. Given that I have no stock of other paper available, and with collectors waiting for the next one in the 'Mystique' series in a couple of weeks, I'm going to move forward and try a 'real' batch. I'll cut enough paper for the edition, and will include in the sizing stack a considerable number of 'practice' sheets of junk paper, which I will toss out later. Hopefully, after I get going on the batch, I can develop a basically smooth motion with the brush. We'll see ...

I'll start tomorrow morning, and will put the Webcam in the kitchen, to try and catch a bit of it ...

This thread about sizing continues here.

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [6]

Posted by Dave Bull at 7:22 AM, August 1, 2010

This thread about paper sizing is continued from here, and started here.

After yesterday's unforeseen delay (check the Comments in the previous post ...), it was back to work on the sizing experiments today.

First on the job list was a quick set of printing tests, using strips of paper cut from the sample sheets I sized the other day. I just grabbed a little blank strip of cherrywood, and printed it in a flat colour, doing it twice - overlapping to see how well the paper would take pigment.

I also picked up a nearby keyblock, and did a bit of 'delicate' work as well.

With all the strips from the 'junk' paper that I tried culled out, here are six pieces of Iwano's hosho paper:

1) light size, one side only, 1/2 recommended alum
2) as 1) but sized on both faces

3) and 4) as 1) and 2) but with the size applied more heavily

5) and 6) as 1) and 2) but with the alum at 'full strength' (1/2 of the weight of the glue in the mix)

The results ... well, it's kind of good news/bad news. The good news is that all these strips printed quite well. There were no problems with the paper sticking to the wood (indicating too weak on the front), tearing on the back (indicating too weak on that surface), or 'disallowing' pigment entry into the paper (indicating too much alum). If the paper I have been recently receiving from the sizing craftsman was all like this, I would never have complained, and never started this whole project ... So the short story is that this is going to work! Woot!

But now, the bad news. I can't tell the difference between these test strips! Some have double the alum. Some have double the amount of size. And none of them were brushed nice and smoothly, as you saw the other day. But they all came out pretty much the same ...

Hmmmm ...

In any case, I made another practice run today. I have to get the brushing better, no doubt about that. And I added another variable to the mix: doing some sheets on the second face right away, and some after the first had dried. We'll see if that makes a detectable difference.

This thread about sizing continues here.

* * *

And to finish off today ... an update ...

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Posted by Dave Bull at 8:54 AM, July 30, 2010

This thread about paper sizing is continued from here, and started here.

After all the preparation, it was finally time today to give my new sizing 'system' its first test!

I spent most of the afternoon at it, and I can tell you - this is not an easy job! Not that I thought it would be, but it has nonetheless made me realize that this is going to need a lot of practice to pull off properly. After all, I'm trying to make the jump from 'zero' to 'professionally acceptable' all in one go ...

Anyway, I did indeed take a lot of photos as I went along (with my camera's self-timer), but instead of putting them here on the RoundTable, where they will soon disappear into the untraceable maze, never to surface again, I thought it would make more sense to put them in a 'Sizing Process' page over in my Encyclopedia.

So please jump over there and have a look:

 

 

This thread about sizing continues here.

'Shrink' back down ... | Discussion [8]