i got an impression from my key block, and it really shows how jagged my lines are.

i suppose i'll let my block dry and try to clean it up a bit with my hangitoh.

* mixed a dollop of color with tablespoon of water
* put small dollop of nori directly on brush (marubake)
* marubake straight from Matsumura (unsplit)
* globbed pigment all over design with paintbrush
* rubbed vigorously with "toy" baren
* many hairs stuck to each impression
* image is ok, but color uneven

when i applied just a bit of pigment to the block, i couldn't get the marubake to spread it across the entire design, so i ended up applying pigment liberally to several areas with a paintbrush and then scrubbing it thoroughly to even it out.

i don't have a sharkskin to split the hairs on my marubake, so i just used scissors to cut off all of the straggly long hairs (making it as even as possible) and used it to clean my block.

since i was using copy paper for the test, i didn't try to wet it. the grain (or rough texture) of the block really shows up. i wonder how i can get smoother color?

i don't have a real baren yet, so i used the one i got at Kinokuniya. i have a plastic baren which i'll use for actual printing.

i also don't have any minogami, so i plan to put impressions directly on dry tracing paper to paste to my color blocks.

any comments or suggestions would be much appreciated!

Steve

You're really moving along!

When I saw the image of the finished keyblock that you posted earlier in the other thread, one thing that struck me was how deep everything is. That's 'good' in that you won't get any blotches in unwanted areas, but 'bad' in that such deep carving makes it quite difficult to spread the colour evenly across the surface. Your brush 'bangs' into the vertical surface of the lines. Anyway, it's printable!

Another thing is that with the registration marks cut so deeply, you may find it quite clumsy to insert the paper; it will have to bend at quite a strong angle to get down that far, and registration may suffer a bit.

But I think this is looking very good, especially for such an ambitious project for a 'first print'.

This is a very nice design.