Here are the team members who finished off the job just last night; this is Patricia Fujii on the left, with Ayumi Shiba:

They are happy, because they are looking forward to a toasty warm workshop come next winter!

Speaking of work in the workshop, here's an updated photo of our baren drawer:

These are the barens in 'active service' (we have more in another drawer, either taking a break, or waiting their turn.) They are mostly the type known as 'hon baren' (real baren) and include ones that I myself have purchased over the years, and of course the ones that we obtained from internet auctions recently.

Honestly speaking, a single printer has no need for this many barens, but we now have five workstations here, and are frequently finding ourselves 'fighting' over who gets to use any particular baren, so given that situation, it's impossible to have too many.

You might notice that we have given up and numbered them. I really didn't want to do this, but it's pretty much unavoidable, as there is simply no way that all the staff members can remember all the details of each tool. We're preparing a wall chart that will be posted next to this drawer, giving detailed information on each of these, and on which blocks it is most suited for.

And finally this evening, here are a couple of snapshots as a 'teaser'. This is printer Ishikawa-san, working on a batch of this print:

She starts with some standard gold leaf:

... and turns it into 'sunago', torn and crumpled fragments while will be 'printed' onto the surface of the paper ...

A few years back, I prepared a short tutorial on how to do this, and she followed it perfectly! Her edition is in our catalogue now!