Written on June 13, 1992 [Permalink]

June 7

Carving under way on Fukayabu [4-5], starting with the kimono patterns as usual. Also busy with preparations for Monday's wrapping day for Doin Hoshi. Now that Shintani-san is gone, I have more to do: cutting and folding the cardboard, as well as working with Ashida-san on the actual wrapping and shipping. So far, I haven't done anything about looking for a replacement, but I'd better get busy ...

June 8

Wrapping day with Ashida-san, and a new world's record - the whole thing done in under two hours. (Actually I feel a bit bad about working together so quickly, as her pay is reduced too much. It's already so small as to be hardly worthwhile for her ...)

June 9

Off to a lunch invitation with Yamashita-san, and yes, he did introduce a new customer. This is his accountant, Mr. Kawawa, who not only wants to take the new ones, but all back numbers as well, in one shot. This is really going to help the finances, and take some of the pressure off for a couple of months. At the moment, there's less than 1,000 yen in the bank, and not much more in the Post Office account. There's only one small problem - I don't have any more Dainagon Kinto [1-10] left from the first set, so I'm going to have to get some paper wet over the next couple of days ... (Of course I've been putting off printing that one because of the wide black kimono ...)

June 10

60 sheets wet for Kinto - and a disappointment... These sheets are the first ones from the newest package of paper from Yamaguchi-san, and when I cracked the package, I found that they were all way, way thicker that I want. Late last year, I asked him to reduce the thickness, and the paper since then has been almost perfect - quite even from sheet to sheet, and nice and thin. I had assumed that there would be no more problems, as he understood what I wanted. There's no way I can get anything like a smooth black impression on a thick paper, and now I find that he's gone back to the chunky heavy stuff, just at the time that I have to print the most difficult black kimono of the whole set ... I guess the problem comes from the fact that most of his customers want this thick paper, and that's just what he automatically makes. I'll have to call him up and 'remind' him gently ...

June 11 (Actually writing this in the early morning of the 12th ...)

Kinto printing. So how can I write this down to make sure I don't forget? How can I describe ... the moisture in the paper, the density of the pigment, the amount of nori on the block, the amount of pigment, the thickness of the baren skin, the rubbing motion, the everything ...

It didn't start out too well. The paper seemed too wet, and there were lots of tiny blotchy white specks showing through the black. I thought that perhaps I had watered the sumi too much, so thickened it up a bit, but that didn't seem to make any difference. After the first five sheets or so, the paper seemed a bit dryer (I guess I wasn't too careful with the top covering of newspapers), and the black became smoother - still not solid, but about the same as what I was able to do last year. I kept going, trying a bit more nori, a bit less nori, a bit more pigment, a bit less ... And then somewhere around half-way (I'll find out tomorrow when I start the colours), the black started to deepen. I wasn't sure why, but it seemed to happen immediately after throwing on what I thought was too much nori. To test this, I left off nori completely for a couple of sheets, and it started to slip right back. That seemed to confirm it, and by adjusting the nori I was able to start getting some very, very deep smooth blacks. Of course, it started to get tamari in all the thin white lines, but careful brushing kept that under control. But how can I quantify this for future reference? Two blobs of nori, one at the lower end of the kimono and one at the upper - a good broad swab of pigment - brush out thoroughly and very carefully in the carved places, and then rub like hell (in small tight circles). Whenever the nori seemed to be getting too gummy, I cut it back a bit. The paper condition? Yawarakai, but maybe a little on the dry side, and this is quite different from what I remember seeing Matsuzaki-san do with this same print when he was giving me a 'lesson' a couple of years ago. His paper was so wet he could barely hold it up over the block. Mine tonight was definitely not that wet. In any case, this one looks very good. A very satisfying, if tiring, evening's work. (I hope it still looks good in the morning!)

I should also mention about the baren skin. The skin I used last week was really quite dead and lifeless, very frustrating to use, and after I took it off I noticed that it seemed quite thick. I put a new one on this afternoon ready for this printing, and took some time to go through my stock of takenokawa, checking for thickness. I found quite a wide variation in thickness from one to the other, and chose a nice thin one. I was super careful in trying to tie it on neatly, and it really turned out to be quite responsive, and had a good 'bite'. I remember Kaneko-san asking me during my last visit there what I thought about the thickness of a sample he was showing me, but I just mumble, mumble, mumbled. I'd never given it any thought. Only 12 years at this ... Some people take a while to catch on to things ...

Yanagida-san from the printing shop came round today with the new 'Issho', a few days earlier that I had expected. Their work looks fine, much better than on the previous one. I felt bad about complaining last time, but it's certainly made a difference.

Ran off the mailing labels, and got them all wrapped up ready for mailing tomorrow - if I can find the 18,000 yen ...

June 13

The colour printing on Kinto yesterday went without any problems, and more than 50 of them are OK to go. This is about 49 more than I had expected when I started the preparation a couple of days ago ...

Wrapped up Mr. Kawawa's packages, all five of them! (One set for each year, plus a package with newsletters, monthly blurbs, pamphlets, etc.) Shipping a set of all back numbers has become a really big deal, compared to what it was a few years ago, and I suppose it's going to get even worse. (Better!)

Also got a video cassette in the mail from the Mainichi Eiga Sha. This is one that they made last January, but had forgotten to send until I reminded them last week. That's 12 video cassettes on the bookshelf now ... and I've only seen half of them!