
6 blocks ready for printing.
..... macrocarpa wood isn't really suited for woodblock printing, its on the soft side with an open grain. On the plus side it tends not to warp when planked and has an earthy scent and colour. However its what I had so I went to work. First I had to reduce the scale of the image to fit my block size ( when I saw the size of the origami bird I was worried I would mess up cutting it out ).
I'm a long way from any quality Japanese products here in Ireland. I found a half box of old printing paper the type with the perforations on either side to feed it through the printer ... it has a light transparent quality to it so I used it for the hansita and subsequent prints from the keyblock. To glue it down I substituted wheat flour for rice flour and made a little paste following this
Nori recipe (worked fine) and the paper only distorted if I used too much paste.
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So the cutting began, I used mostly a penknife for the lines and a surgical blade for the fine detail of the origami bird. My line cutting leaves a lot of room for improvement and was by far the most difficult part of the task, clearing waste required much attention to the charachter of the grain but went well. So now I have five colour blocks and one keyblock. I have found a stiffish paper and am ready to work towards printing when time allows.
I found when cutting the blocks I had to recut line edges regularly to get sufficient depth. If I tried to cut deeply first time I initiated a wobble which didn't improve my confidence. But cutting twice or more risked giving a messy edge also.
The most pressing urge for me now is to hold an origional print in my hands. So David if you would please choose one to send me I would be greatly obliged. Let me know your payment details too.
And if some time in the future I might want to buy good paper what weight do you recommend?
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