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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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I think we're ready to go!

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Continued from Hokkei Dragon (5)

Finally! We have a print to inspect!

I got a couple of dozen scroll prints sent off to the mounting workshop two days ago, so that meant a bit of time available for this job ... I finished up the final colour block, got some paper wet, and started some test printing. Here's the scene on the bench - this is the fourth sheet off the blocks, and I think we're ready to go!

Here's a close-up of the print. The overall balance isn't quite right yet - the dragon himself needs to be more 'dirty', his outlines need to be darker, some of the edge gradations need to be cut back and softened a bit, and the gold-coloured spots on his skin need to be brought out more, but we're within striking distance ...

So, with now only two days left before the exhibition, I don't have a chance to make too many copies of this one just yet (9 people have sent in pre-release orders, and they've been waiting so patiently!), but I'll get a small pile of paper wet tonight, and see if I can get a small batch done before the weekend ...

Then, it'll be time to get them put into the Mokuhankan catalogue!

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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 carving of the poem on this print is now complete!

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Continued from Hokkei Dragon (4)

Not quite sure just how I've managed it, but the carving of the poem on this print is now complete! (No mystery actually ... there are just so many hours one can spend over at the printing bench before the bod starts asking for some kind of a 'switch'!)

Here's the poem ...

And here's a zoom-in on one of the poet's names (scale lines are millimeters):

Not long to go on this print now ... just a couple of colour blocks ...

This thread continues in Hokkei Dragon (6) ...

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Numabe-san returned the stack of prints to me the late last week ...

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Continued from Aspen Grove (10) | Starting point of the thread is here

OK, we've got some results here ... Numabe-san returned the stack of prints to me the late last week, and the other day I got a chance to get them embossed with the title information ...

Here's how I do it - a quick photo taken looking down onto the bench:

The stack of prints is on the right, and on the left is a base plate of stiff card, with a registration mark and the two metal 'slugs' taped down in the appropriate places:

I just pretend that this is a karazuri impression - put each sheet in place, and give it a firm rub with the baren.

Here's a closeup of the right-hand corner of the resulting print:

Over on the left I'll emboss the Mokuhankan seal, although I'm still not sure whether I should put it inside the image area, or out in the margin. If it's inside the image, it will just totally disappear, but if out in the margin, it'll be a bit intrusive I think. It worked very well on the Hilo Bay image, with a smooth colour area for it, but this one is more difficult ...

Anyway, when I get a minute I'll try and get a proper photo of this for the web page, but right now, I've got to concentrate on getting these things out the door to the people who ordered in advance ... and who have been waiting very patiently for nearly half a year!

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Here's a shot of his most recent proof, on the table beside Mike's original print:

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Continued from Aspen Grove (9) | Starting point of the thread is here

Sorry for the lack of updates recently ... just so much going on here these days! :-(

I snatched a chance to get away from my own workbench the other day, to drop in on Numabe-san to see how his proofing had come along. I found him working on an edition for a contemporary 'printmaker' (you know why I put that word in quotation marks!), but he had some stuff to show me. Given all the problems we have had with these block sets, I tried to simplify our work a bit and told him to focus on just getting a good clean print from these new blocks - using Mike's print as a target. We'll worry about alternate versions, etc. later ...

Here's a shot of his most recent proof, on the table beside Mike's original print:

He has come very close - he said the blocks gave him no problems at all ... stable, flat, and easy to work with.

He has prepared a set of pigment specimens to match the eight blocks; these are in the jars at the top left of the photo. Seems to be mostly prussian blue, with sumi added for the later stages.

If you look closely at his proof (the top picture), you can see a light blue strip along the top of the image. This is printed by block #0, the blank block in the set. For this new block set, Mike prepared blocks #1 through #8, and didn't bother to send a replacement for the blank one, knowing that we could use the one from the previous block set. But look at the difference in size! Numabe-san wanted me to see this before he cut it down to fit the new blocks.

Mike says that all the block sets have been cut to the exact same dimensions, and I guess that's so, but they sure didn't stay the same dimensions! Look at this next photo. The three prints are (from the top)

• one of my own first proofs taken from the first block set we received, made soon after the blocks arrived in Japan.
• the proof Mike pulled from those blocks in Kansas City
• a proof Numabe pulled from those same blocks, after they had been in Japan a few weeks ...

No wonder we were having so much trouble with them ... But anyway, this new set is working just fine. They are plywood core, which of course reduces expansion/contraction, and we have moved into the dryest part of the year, when blocks generally stay much more stable ...

I've given him the go-ahead to pull an edition, so finally, we're almost at the point where we can publish!

This thread continues in Aspen Grove (11) ...

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The package with the new set of blocks arrived from Mike today!

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Continued from Aspen Grove (8) | Starting point of the thread is here

The package with the new set of blocks arrived from Mike today!

They look very good ... still completely flat, not the tiniest warp or unevenness of any kind.

Here's a focus on one of them ... click it for a monster enlargement ...

I'll call Numabe-san this evening, so see what his schedule is like. He had mentioned earlier having time available in the second week of October, but I suspect that I've missed that 'window'; we'll just have to see what he says ...

This thread continues in Aspen Grove (10) ...

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The carving has been coming along, very slowly bit by bit, sandwiched between work on the scroll and the colouring books ...

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Continued from Hokkei Dragon (3)

The carving has been coming along, very slowly bit by bit, sandwiched between work on the scroll and the colouring books ... Here's a shot of the completed key block. I forgot to snap it when it was fresh and clean; it has just been brushed with sumi to make the kyogo - the sheets to transfer the pattern to the colour blocks. (click to popup a larger image in another window)

I'm thinking that I'll probably need three pieces of wood (six faces) for this print; there aren't a lot of colours in it. Here are four of the kyogo impressions, with the yellow and red marks on them indicating areas that I'll be preserving (or cutting away). The third one from the left appears reversed, because it has already been pasted down onto a fresh piece of wood.

Here are a couple of close-up shots of the next block being carved. This will be the one that prints the metal powder (for highlights on the dragon's body, and the poem). I've already done the rough clearing, leaving just the areas containing the design elements.

And here are some of the zillion little dots of those highlights. It doesn't really matter what shape each one is, as long as they are approximately the correct size, but I like to kind of get them to look as close to the original as possible. You can see here that they are mostly carved quickly, into a sort of triangular shape. Later, after the first proof sheets show the appearance, I'll return to this block and knock off some of the sharper points, to give the dots a more rounded appearance ...

This thread continues in Hokkei Dragon (5) ...

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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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