Hello all.

It's a bit embarrassing to post this seeing all the other great first attempts here in the gallery, and I'm sure I'll be able to hear Mr. Bull's sighs of despair when he sees the image and notes all of the "don'ts" that are evident. But here it is anyway.

After Action Report: Lots of things I could do better with this. First, I was using these small post-card sized blocks. Since the postcards are the same size as the blocks, I didn't use registration marks so the little face image of the daruma was off in each of the prints. I'm not sure if it's the bad paper or if I was using a bad mix of ink or of I wasn't rubbing hard enough with the baron, but the image was blotchy. Also, I ended up canceling carving the original image. In the rice stalk, I wanted to carve each of the grains of rice, but I suppose my hangi-toh was not sharp enough in that it wasn't cutting deep enough. Or maybe I wasn't pushing hard enough. The spaces in between the grains wouldn't come away from the wood. I ended up just leaving a bit on the end, and using the sankaku-toh to carve out little bits that looked like grains.

So next go at printing, I'm gonna try to get a bigger block. I guess the small ones would be fine for single color prints. And I need to get more comfortable with sharpening my tools. I don't think I do it right.

All that said, I kinda like the images even with their myriad imperfections. I was thinking of using them as "Thank you for your business" cards to send to customers who by our rice (I farm rice with a guy here on Sado). The little character is what we use as a brand for our rice.

Here's the original image I used to carve. Made two blocks. One of the daruma body and border lines in red. And another of the daruma face and the rice stalk in green.

Matthew, sorry not to reply earlier … I hadn't seen this until tonight.

It's a bit hard to tell exactly why you get the 'blotchy' colour there, but my guess would be that the paper is perhaps too thick - or too 'hard'. Did you moisten it before printing? And if it is very thick card (like typical postcard paper from the post office) that would be very difficult for anybody to print …

But this is a cute print, and I think it will be perfect for your intended use. Have you got a website for your rice products that you can link for us?

Yes, I was using the postcards you can get from the post office. Two kinds, actually. One was kinda smooth type, while the other was a bit rougher type. I did not moisten them before hand, as I was a bit hesitant to do that in case I over did it or it ruined the paper. I'll try it on the next batch.

I wasn't sure about your policy on linking to personal sites, so I didn't provide a link. But since you asked...

Our farm is called Daruma An Farms - www.daruma-an.com. You can see 3 of the designs I made for our rice on the Shop page (the Ondeko Mai, Kodai Mai and Komeko bags). They were all done using the keishi gum stamps, since that was easier to carve for a novice like me and also easier to stamp onto the bags we use for rice!