After coming home from an internship in Tokyo during the summer of 2019, I briefly took up woodblock printmaking as a way to stay connected with Japan until I could return!
Mokuhankan
While in Tokyo, I signed up for one of David Bull’s printmaking demonstrations at the Mokuhankan shop in Asakusa, where he guides visitors through the printing process using a simplified version of Hokusai’s Great Wave.
I had a wonderful time and left eager to try it myself! Guided by David’s YouTube channel and armed with a set of basic carving knives from Sekaido, I took to carving!
King of Diamonds
One of my first real prints. I was still getting the hang of carving, and the finer details proved to be a challenge. This was also my first attempt carving registration marks to align the different layers of multi-color prints.
Kabuki #1
Next, I wanted to practice carving fine details. I searched online for a suitable image and found a very old (circa 1705-1710) print by Okamura Masanobu titled Yakusha ezukushi Pl. 11.
While I was writing this, I couldn’t quite remember the original title or artist, but it turns out Google reverse image search is good enough to find an exact match based on a blurry photo of my print. Magic!
Kabuki #2
I tried a few different methods for transferring images to the wood for carving. I started on another kabuki image but stopped halfway when the transfer paper peeled off during carving:
Catfishing
Another image cropped from an existing print. This time, the ink transferred quite well from the washi paper to the board. I remember using some kind of transparent marker to release the ink from the paper.
It took a while to learn how much ink to use and where to apply pressure with the baren:
