What a wonderful, wonderful series, David ! Thank you! After viewing your series, I was curious to see what version of Hokusai 's Great Wave I have been admiring for years. I live outside Boston and I have just realized, on-line, that they have 7 copies of the print...each one different, and in different condition. And I was able to compare the wave curl just as you did in your video. Amazing! So thank you for your informative series. As a still-learning woodblock printmaker, I so appreciate your generosity in sharing your knowledge. I struggle in my studio, but most excitedly! By the way, the MFA in Boston is staging a Houkusai exhibit this April.

Dave, very nice explanation on paper expansion & shrinkage; many years ago I remember discussing this but is something that is not always in my mind since I don't do such detail work and thus not so much concerned with size. We just recently purchased a top of the line HP printer but have not had much chance to play with it, the thing is huge ! In regards to printing your color separations which don't have a hanshita; are you editing those in the computer and printing each one separate or are you still doing it the old way were you print a bunch of copies of the key block and color in by hand for each separation ? I believe you once mentioned that each printout coming out of the printer could be slightly off due to printer/paper alignment issues... thanks !

Well, all the work we are doing recently is the 'key block' type, so we are making colour separations from the finished outline block. If I were printing out colour seps from a commercial printer (ink jet or laser), I would be very wary that they could be distorted. Check your printer first by printing a grid pattern from it, and inspect this to see if the printer is indeed printing out accurately ...