Your first reaction might be that this is a bit lacking in 'body', and you would be right - because this is printed on the same bland white machine-made paper that we use for the kakegami. But other than that, I think it turned out pretty well ...

Couple of things to mention:

• the deep red is the weakest part of her work; getting smooth deep rich colour is of course difficult. I'll have her do it with a double impression next time.
• her registration isn't quite tight enough; there are small gaps here and there. And what is worse, it varies from sheet to sheet in the batch. She is going to have to get her keyblock tighter.
• The background is amazingly smooth. She did it with two lighter impressions, rather than trying to hit it all at once. This was where I had expected her to stumble, and it turned out to be the best part!

I should perhaps talk a bit about how much 'help' she got from me to do this. I prepared the paper, getting it to the proper level of moisture to begin. That is hugely important, and is perhaps the single biggest way that I can help her at this point. I also selected the pigments and brushes, and suggested which baren would be best for each impression. The rest was all hers - she had a sample print beside her bench, and blended the pigment/paste/water balances for each impression to match what she saw. I touched nothing.

Anyway, as soon as I saw this result, I went up to the storeroom, grabbed a sheet of Iwano-san's nicest hosho paper, sliced it up, and prepared it for her next batch. She is ready to get going on some real prints! If she can pull off this same result (fixing the faults that I mentioned above) on real paper, we're ready to think about getting it into the catalogue!

(As for the next news item ... about the Summer Senshafuda prints, let's save that for tomorrow ...)