Added to the catalogue - 'Girl and Blossoms'

Posted in General Interest by Dave Bull at 12:32 PM, March 28, 2009

The batch of reprinting mentioned in the previous post has now wrapped up, and the stacks of blank paper have magically been transformed into prints!

They're not all packaged yet, but I'll be doing that over the next few days in my off time from work on the latest 'My Solitudes' print.

Most of these images were re-prints of items already in the Mokuhankan catalogue, but one of them is being newly added - the Sukenobu design of a girl sitting under cherry blossoms that was originally part of my Surimono Album #1.

It's been a full ten years since I cut the blocks and made the original 200 copies. When I sat down last week to make this reprint, I felt that the colour scheme I used back then was a bit weak, so had no hesitation in making a few changes. Nothing dramatic, but I do feel it looks better this way ...

Old version:

New version:

(Actually, a big part of the difference apparent there is the poor quality of the scan from ten years ago. Someday, I'll have to find the time to re-scan all that old stuff ... Someday!)

Here's the order page for the new print ...


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Spring update ...

Posted in General Interest by Dave Bull at 10:12 AM, March 6, 2009

Here we are with a long-overdue update on what's happening with this Mokuhankan venture.

I get the occasional email from a fan or collector asking about when more items will be appearing in the catalogue, and whether or not I will actually be publishing more new print designs. After all, it has been two years now since any new images appeared here, and I can understand that people might have given up waiting!

I can reply right away that yes, there will be more prints here at some point, and that far from being 'abandoned', Mokuhankan is playing a very important role in my activities. But expanding the catalogue is having to take a back seat these days to the more mundane job of just keeping my head above water.

But that's not meant to be a negative statement - Mokuhankan is actually hugely successful. Let me explain ...


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Status update ... new items ...

Posted in General Interest by Dave Bull at 5:21 PM, December 3, 2007

Not much action on these 'Conversations' recently, and for that I apologize, but there is so much work going on around here!

Most of that work though, is on my own My Solitudes project, and thus doesn't help this Mokuhankan catalogue expand at all!

So I don't have a long list of new prints to show you these days; updates have mostly been in two categories:

  • Books: I have put more books into the catalogue, both eBooks on printmaking, and my own A Story A Week collections
  • Postcard-size prints: Using the blocks I used years ago to make new year cards, I have done some reprinting, and added some of those items to this Mokuhankan catalogue. These prints are available in the 'standard' Mokuhankan packaging, or in gift-wrapped form, ready for 'drop-shipping' to people as gifts ...

Just when some more new prints will be added, I really can't say at the moment. The Solitudes prints are taking so much work, it really doesn't leave time for much else to get done. But there will be more prints here sometime ... of that I'm sure! Thanks for your patience ...


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Mokuhankan - first year financials ...

Posted in General Interest by Dave Bull at 12:02 AM, February 14, 2007

Tax time comes early here in Japan - personal income tax returns have to be filed before March 15th, so that's what I've been up to for the past few days.

I do all my own 'bookkeeping', but then send the summaries off to a pro for completion of the tax forms; I learned long ago that he can usually save me more than enough to cover his fee, and that's not even counting the savings in hassle and time ...

For the past few years I have been publishing my printmaking income summaries in my Hyakunin Issho newsletter, and I guess we might as well continue that tradition for Mokuhankan. (Not that there is much to 'show' yet!)

Here is a simple spreadsheet showing the main 'money in/money out' flow at the end of the first year's efforts:


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Mokuhankan eBook printouts ...

Posted in General Interest by Dave Bull at 7:46 PM, February 1, 2007

Samples of printed-out eBooks ...

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Six new prints added to Mokuhankan!

Posted in General Interest by Dave Bull at 10:18 PM, January 28, 2007

... with only 200 copies pulled so far, it would be a crime to let them sleep indefinetely.

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Hokkei Dragon (6) - Proofing ... last chance for pre-release discount!

Posted in Hokkei Dragon , Process by Dave Bull at 5:26 PM, January 18, 2007

I think we're ready to go!

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Discussion on identifying print 'batches' ...

Posted in General Interest by Dave Bull at 9:41 PM, November 26, 2006

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

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Hokkei Dragon (5) - Poem carving done ...

Posted in Hokkei Dragon , Process by Dave Bull at 6:57 PM, November 23, 2006

the carving of the poem on this print is now complete!

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Aspen Grove (11) - Embossing the title

Posted in Aspen Grove , Process by Dave Bull at 5:17 PM, November 22, 2006

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

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Aspen Grove (10) - Proofing

Posted in Aspen Grove , Process by Dave Bull at 10:49 PM, November 9, 2006

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

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Aspen Grove (9) - 4th Set of Blocks arrive!

Posted in Aspen Grove , Process by Dave Bull at 11:02 AM, October 15, 2006

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

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