At this point, I don't actually remember what I showed you, as far as sketches and sample designs were concerned. Designer Seki-san had been very busy at the time, and after just too many long 'blanks' without hearing from her, I went ahead and took a few of her roughs and turned them into tracings ready for carving. I sent these to carver Sato-san, and he got busy right away.

He turned the job around in very quick time, and the two of us had a meeting to work out a sensible colour separation. He then got busy with the colour blocks, sent them over to Tetsui-san, and he in turn got busy with a trial proof. We didn't have a four-man meeting on that this time; Tetsui-san asked that he be allowed to do it by himself, and I concurred. Although it was a lot of fun last time, with all four of us present at the first proofing, it really wasn't fair on Tetsui-san, who would much rather just sit quietly, look at the blocks and sketches, and work out a sensible colour scheme without a bunch of people all tossing in their suggestions.

I went over to his place after the first few copies were ready, and he and I analyzed how they could be improved. It turned out that I had slipped up on some of the separations, and it was necessary to send the blocks back to Sato-san for some more work. (One place he had misunderstood my directions, another place I had forgotten to include an area, and in yet one more place, I had given him the wrong title for one of the prints, requiring a major excavation job on one of the blocks!)

But he got them back to us very quickly, and Tetsui-san ran off the proof that you see here. I don't think this is 'it', and I have given him another 'change order' list, but those alterations can all be handled while he is at work, and he is now busy with the first batch of actual prints. (I've asked for adjustments in the green tone, the beige, the amount of 'transparency' in the bamboo screen, the gradation in the aquarium, both the sky and sea tones on the fireworks print, and a few other odds and ends here and there. :-)

One thing I was very curious about was how they would look when seen 'in situ' with the previous set:

I think we're being quite consistent ... and I can't wait to see all twelve!

But for now, I had better get busy with getting the packaging ready (and work out a more secure shipping method than I used for the last ones!), because he'll have the initial batch done in just around a week or so! We're actually going to get these out the door while it is still summer ... incredible!