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Now this is not much of a 'financial statement', as it omits all kind of information - it doesn't show the assets I have accumulated (the prints in inventory), nor does it show liabilities (the designer royalties I have yet to pay, etc.). There is also a lot of 'cheating' going on - the printing paper was 'stolen' from my own personal stock, as was the wood for many of the blocks, but at this point, the flow of cash is the only score-card I need to pay much attention to ...

With next to no marketing done - nothing much beyond the web site - and only a half-dozen prints in the catalogue, I've brought in just about US$5000. Of course, it cost me around US$8000. to do that, so Mokuhankan is certainly not contributing to my income yet!

But it's early days ... and this is certainly within the range of an acceptable loss. If I had spent that much and got nothing back, I think the venture would need a re-think, but this seems reasonable to me.

Let's see how it will change for next year!

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If you want more information on how these books were made, add a comment to the discussion section of this post, and I'll refer it to Mark for his attention. I don't think he intends to get into business producing these, but he may be willing to share information on how he did it ...

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I've been talking to Ueda-san the young printer, and he's ready and willing to make some editions for me, but I can't afford to let him get started just yet. So in the meantime, I can get things kick-started by putting my own overstock prints into the Mokuhankan file cabinet.

In order to get 200 clean copies of each print when I made the original batches, I of course started with more sheets than that. Once each batch was done, defects were culled, and the rest put into drawers to await orders from customers. But as the number of good ones varied from print to print within the series, I had to stop selling sets when the ones with the lowest quantities ran out.

So it is these 'extra' prints that are now being made available from Mokuhankan. Here's a small image of each one, clickable to jump over to the catalogue page.

Hokusai:

Hiroshige:

Bun'Ichi:

Zeshin:

Toyohiro:

Koryusai:

I hope you find some of these to your liking!

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Resources (and customers!) are both scarce at present, so the prints are being printed in quite small batches.

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Mokuhankan prints are all issued in 'open editions' - that is, there is no intention to limit the number of prints produced, and no customers are being encouraged to believe that their print is (or will become) 'rare'.

In actual practice of course, the number of prints produced is a finite number. Resources (and customers!) are both scarce at present, so the prints are being printed in quite small batches. If it should happen that we never really get enough air under the wings for a full take-off, then those batches will end up being the full 'editions'. If, on the other hand, we do get this thing up and running in a big way, further batches of all the prints will be run off as necessary.

This brings up the question of how collectors can identify the prints they have purchased from Mokuhankan. Here is a quote (reproduced here with his permission) from a recent email I received from one of the earliest Mokuhankan customers:

Your sales and inventory page prompted me to order this print. If sales do not take off I am assured of owning a fine rare print. If they do pick up I will own an early copy of a popular print. ...

I tell you this half in jest. I am not really shopping for resale value, but many people do. Some justify buying a print by pretending to know what it's worth and how valuable it might become. I have read your thoughts on editions and I agree with you. ... But, I guess you also know that adding pencil stuff (even on the verso) will definitely increase sales. I suppose you might have considered a compromise position that would allow you to keep your print run open, but also feed the collectors and retailers with a notion of scarcity. Simply dating the print will give them satisfaction, if you were to indicate the month of printing and the size of the print run, they would be even happier. I do not think it is the sequential numbering of prints that attracts buyers, but the certain knowledge of the size of the pool of copies. People, and some dealers, imagine a print without pencil to be a worthless investment, because they assume there are thousands of copies in the cupboard or in circulation. Of course this is rarely the case, but they think it's easy to knock out a few thousand to have on standby. And let's face it we are competing with machines that do make thousands of copies.

So, going by this suggestion, I should put some kind of marks, numbers, what-have-you, on each print, to show that it came from a particular batch at a particular time.

I have no strong feeling either way on this, except that I am extremely allergic to putting any kind of numbers on the prints that could possibly be taken as an attempt to increase the monetary value of the print. "You like it? You buy it!" is the way I want to run things here ... nothing more, nothing less.

But I do have to admit that it would be kind of interesting for future print owners to be able to tell just what kind of Mokuhankan print they have in their hands. Collectors in our own day get great pleasure out of knowing such details on the - just for one example - Hasui prints they own.

So let's put the question out there for discussion/comment. Please let me know your thoughts on the issue of Mokuhankan including more information on each print ...

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The first two eBooks in the Mokuhankan catalogue seem to be turning out to be successful, so here's another one ... with a difference!

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The first two eBooks in the Mokuhankan catalogue seem to be turning out to be successful, so here's another one ... with a difference!

Here's a clip from the description on the catalogue page:

"Unlike modern process printing, traditional Japanese woodblock printing requires a separate block to be created for each colour in the final print. Actually that is a slight simplification, as colour overlapping is also done, but the main point is that for each print I carve a ‘key block’ which contains the outlines of the design, and a group of colour blocks for adding the tones.

"Nothing special about that ... this has been going on for hundreds of years. But recently here in Japan, we are in the middle of a huge boom in Otona no Nuri-e, which translates literally as ‘Colouring Pictures for Adults’. (Adult in this context doesn’t mean x-rated, it simply distinguishes this material from the common children’s colouring books.)

"So ... put the two ideas together ... and it seems like an interesting idea - pull some prints from my key blocks, and offer them for colouring! And that’s what this little ebook is about ... a selection of five designs from my Surimono Albums print series, scanned from my key block images for you to print out and colour."

The price ... only $2.50 for a copy with classroom/family license! Order it here.

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the new colouring book is now nearly here!

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After months of discussion, bargaining, and preparation, the new colouring book is now nearly here here!

Here's a clip from the description on the catalogue page:

Description: This is a colouring book that uses 13 of the images from David's well-known Hyakunin Isshu hanga series. Each image is presented on a full page twice: once in a colour reproduction of his print, and once in black outline only, so the purchaser can create their own coloured image.
The colouring pages are printed on heavy stock, and are perforated for easy removal from the book for colouring. Either colour pencils, or standard watercolours would be suitable to use.

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... a zillion dragon scales!

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Most of my recent work on Mokuhankan has been 'behind the scenes', working on the Japanese side of the site. But print 'construction' work is still continuing bit by bit ... Here's a shot from the webcam taken this evening ... I'm working my way through a zillion dragon scales!

In other news, replacement blocks for 'Aspen Grove' were ordered, but have yet to arrive. Mike let me know that he has a 'window' of time available at the end of August, but I don't think that I'll be able to get the wood to him by that time, as there really isn't any way that I can afford to send the very heavy package by air.

And the long delay with the final stage of the Hilo Bay print is now over, and the batch has been sent back to me by Numabe-san the printer. Now to - gulp - pay his bill!

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Morley-Fletcher's 1916 volume - Wood-block Printing.

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The second eBook in the Mokuhankan collection is now up on the website, Morley-Fletcher's 1916 volume - Wood-block Printing.

There is a sample eBook download linked from this page, along with a couple of actual-size images of what a Mokuhankan eBook looks like on your screen.

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Mokuhankan's first eBook published.

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Just woodblock prints in the Mokuhankan catalogue? Nope ... this week the first of what I hope will become a nice little 'library' of books on woodblock printmaking has been published and added to the site.

At this point, there is no way that I can afford to publish these books in 'dead tree' format - nor do I know if there is actually enought interest in them to justify that - so for now, they will be available in eBook format (as a pdf file for viewing on screen).

A sample version that will allow you to take a peek at the format can be found here. Please take a look!

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A shopping cart is now in place on the Mokuhankan site ...

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Just a quick note ... a Shopping Cart system is now in place on the Mokuhankan website.

It is now very easy to browse through the catalogue, add things to the cart to check what an potential order would cost (with shipping), and to remove/add as required.

(It's been a steady carving week ... more progress updates should be coming soon ...)

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A visit to printer Numabe-san, as he works on a Toshi Yoshida reprint ...

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Time away from the workbenches yesterday for a trip downtown: Kinko's for printing some package labels for Mokuhankan, over to a book publisher to talk about their request to use my Hyakunin Isshu designs for a poetry book they are issuing (a frequent request), and then, with the rest of the day free, over to the building where the Yoshida family lives (upstairs), and where printer Shinkichi Numabe has a bench in the ground floor workshop.

Back in the fall of 1986, I used to 'commute' from my apartment in Hamura all the way down here four or five times a week. In those days, the 'Yoshida Hanga Academy' was still open, and for a few months I had a place at one of the student benches. Toshi-san was still alive in those days of course, and he felt that it was very important to provide a place where people from other countries could be exposed to the Japanese printmaking traditions.

There were two rooms, a longish one with two wide benches at which the students worked, and a smaller attached room where Yoshida's two printers worked on the family printmaking - pulling editions of Toshi-san's new prints, reprints of his previous work, and endless editions from the blocks left behind by Hiroshi-san, Toshi's father. In my day, the two printers were Komatsu Heihachi, and Hamano-san.

I stayed only a few months, leaving for a few reasons: I was getting totally tangled up with toy-making at that time, finances were very tight and I couldn't really afford the (very reasonable) studio fee and the (very expensive) transportation, but mostly because I was very disappointed that there was no carver in the workshop (the Yoshidas used photographic reproduction methods for their keyblocks).

Anyway, fast forward almost exactly twenty years, and here I am again in the same rooms. It has become very quiet here; the school closed shortly after Toshi-san passed away, as his son Tsukasa decided not to continue. The long room seems to be pretty much unused; some prints are drying in a stack on one of the tables, but the rest seems to be just for storage.

And the printer's room too, is very different. Hamano-san's workstation is gone, but Komatsu-san's is still there, although completely cleaned up and empty of tools and materials. He is now 81, and retired a couple of years back.

Numabe-san has a small workspace right next to where Komatsu-san used to work, and I think he has just kept the same arrangement from the time when the two of them used to work side-by-side. I can understand his reluctance to move across into the space that was used by Komatsu-san for so many years ...

He stands up to work, as do many of the younger printers these days. (Numabe-san is 54 ... exactly my contemporary). Here he is, brushing the pigment onto one of the blocks for Toshi Yoshida's 'Half-moon Bridge'; in the background, perhaps you can see Komatsu-san's empty workstation ...

If I move the camera slightly, you can see into his workspace. The stack of partially finished prints is under the cloth on the shelf in front of him, just above the cups containing the pigments for this block.

After each sheet is rubbed, it is flipped over face-up onto the moistened newspaper stack at his left, where he gives it a quick once-over to make sure that colour and registration are staying under control. After each couple of dozen sheets, he covers them with another sheet of moist newsprint.

When he gets to the bottom of the pile of 120 sheets that makes up this 'edition' (or perhaps I should say 'batch'), he flips them over into a face-down orientation, puts them back onto the shelf, and prepares the next block and pigments.

Gary, are you looking closely? In that first photo ... under his right arm ...?

Yes, there's one of the proofs of Hilo Bay that I took along, together with the set of blocks. We had a good discussion about the print; I had prepared a set of block proofs, showing how I had arrived at my result, and these were an excellent guide to introduce him to the image. I also left with him the original printout from Gary, along with a list of 'talking points' that we have covered on these pages.

He still has a bunch of work to finish off for the Yoshidas, and that'll probably take him to around the 10th of June or so, but he'll then clear the decks for Mokuhankan work. (The Yoshidas have no problems with him doing outside jobs at his bench here; they're very happy with the amount of time he can spend on their work, and don't expect to be able to monopolize his time.)

I then showed him the Aspen Grove proofs, both Mike's and mine, and just as we were digging into those, Tsukasa-san came down from upstairs. I didn't have that block set with me of course, but I described the construction method and outlined the difficulties of arriving at a 'finished' conception, when there were so many possibilities in the image. Tsukasa-san thought the whole thing was pretty 'cool', which is not really a surprise, because the Yoshidas have always been pretty open to new ideas in printmaking, even though one would hardly call them 'cutting edge'.

The three of us looked at the different versions from close up, and we looked at them from afar. The only thing that seemed to be a consensus was that Mike's version is kind of too saturated and strong, and mine are too washed-out and weak. This much I know - it's finding the right place in-between that is the challenge!

Also - something I was a bit surprised at - Numabe-san is quite interested in this one too, and asked if he could do it. I wasn't sure what to answer; I've sort of been nurturing the idea that I would like to do this one myself ...

So we didn't come to any agreement on that, but what we did decide to do was to do some proofing on Aspen Grove during the same sessions as the proofing on Hilo Bay, and then see what develops.

Because we're not starting from zero on either of these prints, I think we can get them nailed down in three days, and we are planning the schedule on that basis. He will then - assuming we can come to agreement on the image - get busy with the edition(s).

He gets paid for his work by the sheet, and quotes a price on each job based on how long he thinks it will take him, working in his mind with a target figure of 20,000 yen per day, but quoted to the client in a yen figure per print. (Working six days a week at this figure just barely brings him to an average income by Japanese standards, and actually far less when you consider the bonus/travel allowances/retirement allowance/etc. that most salarymen get.) So for the proofing, I'm guaranteeing him his 20,000 per day for as long as the two of us think it takes. He will then take a good long look at what we've done, and quote me a 'per sheet' figure.

We then have a small area of disagreement coming, because I have a very small budget for this stuff right now, and can't afford to order the usual 100 or 200 copies, which is really the kind of order he needs to make the job worthwhile. (Making fewer copies means the proportion of his time spent in mixing and preparation as opposed to actual printing starts to grow too large). I'm going to want 50 of each, he's going to want to do 100, which would take him nowhere near twice as long. When he quotes the 'per sheet', it will be on the basis of a run of 100 copies.

The only way through the problem will be for me to tell him, "Look, for this case we'll just have to forget about that 'price per sheet' figure. If you can simply give me a guesstimate on how long the job will take you - working at the 'inefficient' quantity of 50 copies - then I'll promise you the 20,000 per day rate. At least that way you won't be losing out." It'll be quite a bit more expensive for me on a 'per sheet' basis, but at present, I just don't have any other options ...

Anyway, all in all an excellent afternoon, and I even learned some new things about printing by watching him work ... but I think I'll save those for another place and another time ...

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