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As for paper choice, I'm starting with a package of sample papers produced by the Awagami Company here in Japan. They have a complete line of washi papers that they claim are suitable for machine printing, and although I've never used such a thing before, this project seems like the perfect chance to see how they work.

And I think there is actually no choice when it comes to deciding on the printing order. These papers are all labelled as being for 'ink jet' printers, so it seems to me that I have to do the woodblock work first. That's because I need to moisten the paper to print, and I doubt that I will be able to do that after the ink jet work is done ...

Here's the result of this evening's trial printing:

The best one? Well, in this first trial printing, the sheet of paper from our usual supplier - Ichibei Iwano - seemed to give the best results, but perhaps that's because I have a lot of experience using it ...

But the open question is what happens in the next round of testing - putting these things through an ink-jet printer. We'll find out in a couple of days!

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When we were first planning this construction project, we thought that such a carving might be a nice 'feature' to use in the entrance to the Print Party room:

But it turned out that the large air conditioner didn't leave enough room for this type of decoration, so we gave it up. Anybody out there have any use for it? (We have two of them ... they frequently come in pairs ...)

While we're here taking photos ... let's see how the Party room is coming along ... Aoyama-san has now got the main bench installed, along with the paper shelf above, and the cork board where the image samples will live:

The space below the bench will have the refrigerator for the cold drinks, and shelves for the supplies (alternate block sets, paper, brushes, etc., etc. ...)

And speaking of alternate block sets for the Print Parties, initial carving of the 'MicroWave' is done, and the first proof sheet has been pulled:

Some of the Twitch fans who watched me finish this off yesterday morning on the daily live stream seemed pretty excited about it finally getting to this stage (I think ...): "This came out really nice. That sucks. I'm going to have to book another trip to Asakusa ..."

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This is what was in his first shipment, and he says that he has lots more where these came from:

I haven't had any time at all to sort through these things yet, but I can see that he has sent us quite an interesting collection of books:

What's the story here? Who knows ... but it's going to be fun browsing them anyway!

We'll be posting more once we get a chance to get these online ... Thanks for your patience!

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A page from the little travel 'journal' I kept on our first trip to Japan in 1981~2 ...

This is part of the cover wrapping (it was fresh and new when I bought it!) of a print set I saw that day ...

A well-used woodblock ... dating from the early Taisho period:

A clip of a page of a book published here in Japan in 1979 ...

Part of a letter from the designer of that image ...

Is that it? Well ... no. I'm saving the best stuff for the video itself! :-)

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At the one year mark of the Patreon campaign ...

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It seems difficult for us to believe, but our Patreon campaign has been under way for over a year now. During that period, we have sent out a steady stream of the small prints that we offered as gifts to the backers - the prints we have been calling our 'Patreon Chibies'.

We're now busy printing the second set of design of those prints, and deliveries of those will start any day now. But when we set up the campaign we also promised a very different kind of reward for backers at the $25 (monthly) level - a 'SHARE in the fun CERTIFICATE' - and I've been quite delinquent in getting this ready.

Well, now that we've hit the one year mark, I can't put this off any longer, so production has begun! I'll share some photos over the next few days as we put this together, but here is how it is beginning ...

Here are the three blank blocks that I'll be using the produce the woodblock part of the finished certificate:

And after a couple of hours of work, I'm nearly done ...

What will I do with those blocks when they are ready for printing? I'll show you later, but here is a view of the starting point of the 'base' section of the certificate ... what a mess!

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A new video is up on YouTube

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David's Choice #6 is now up on YouTube; this one is not about a single print, but features an entire genre of woodblock work ... the melodramatic novels of the late Edo period ...

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Work on the next David's Choice video has begun ...

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YouTube is so good to us ... bringing so many thousands of views to our channel, and helping us 'spread the word' all over the world. It hasn't been too difficult to collect quite a number of subscribers, and it's certainly enjoyable reading their comments and feedback, but ... we have kind of created a monster ... a voraciously hungry monster!

"Feed me! ... Feed me!" it constantly complains! Or as it is usually expressed in the emails, "When is the next video coming out ...", or "Dave are you OK? There hasn't been a new video for a while ..."

Well, yes I'm OK ... but one thing I don't want to do is just shove a few things together and upload things that I would regret later. I think our content is the type of thing that should be of interest for quite some time to come, so it's important to me to prepare it carefully, and that of course means ... "Good cooking takes time!"

Anyway, this is all to say that the next video is now well into production, and while I was sitting in our shop this afternoon doing some recording (Tuesday is our closing day), Cameron snapped a few photos ...

Here's an overview: I'm sitting in my usual spot, speaking to the camera. The dark object at the left is a floodlight umbrella, and you can see the digital recorder sitting on my laptop. (We record the audio separately from the video, and stitch them back together during the editing process.)

This next shot is taken over my shoulder, showing what I am looking at - my teleprompter. The video camera isn't visible here, as it is hidden under the dark teleprompter cover, behind the glass panel.

I've heard from some viewers that they are disappointed to hear that I use a teleprompter. Not sure what to say about that; I don't actually use it for all the videos. When I have a specific list of points to get across - like during the David's Choice videos, which this one is - I definitely need it to avoid getting lost along the way, but when the content is more 'storytelling' and 'rambly' (like the long video about visiting Ito-san the carver) I just set the camera up, hit record, and go for it ...

In the next shot you can see the 'control centre'; my lapel mic is plugged into the digital recorder, and the script notes also appear on the screen of my laptop (which mirrors to the teleprompter). The notes are actually scrolling at this moment, and if you look at the resulting video later, you might perhaps be able to see me reaching out now and then with my right hand to tap the keyboard to adjust the scrolling speed - it's never possible to just 'set and forget' it, because my speaking pace speeds and slows as I move along, and I always need small adjustments to keep the text in view. I make these videos totally by myself, so as there is nobody else to do this job for me, I have to 'sneak' it, hoping that the viewers won't notice ... :-)

This one of course, is shot from the other direction, from behind the camera ...

During a break, I lifted the cover of the teleprompter to show Cameron how the video camera sits just behind the glass screen. I can't see it while recording, but I know how high it is, so it's fairly easy to keep my view steadily into the lens ...

And these days ... we have to ensure that our mascots are present! If I forget to include one of these guys, I'll be hearing about it from the viewers!

So what's the topic of this next video? It'll be #6 in the David's Choice series, and will feature the little item you can see on the stand next to me in that last photo ...

Coming soon!

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A video interview from a few years back ...

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About four years ago, I received a request from a printmaker in Colombia to do a video interview (not in person, but over Skype and via clips sent back and forth). It has taken him a while to get it ready :-) but this morning he sent me a link to the finished product on YouTube. I think it turned out OK!

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Asakusa Station on the Ginza Line near us has installed an enormous touch screen monitor with a map and detailed information and photos from 30 different shops in the area, and we are one of the 30!

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This month marks a historical first for Mokuhankan: we are using our first paid advertising. We think it's a pretty cool form of advertising, too. Asakusa Station on the Ginza Line near us has installed an enormous touch screen monitor with a map and detailed information and photos from 30 different shops in the area, and we are one of the 30! Keep reading to see how it looks, and find out how it came about...

In the past, Mokuhankan has had lots of visiting salespeople, trying to get us to sign up for a small spot on printed maps, posters, pamphlets, et cetera, but with Asakusa being such a tourism hot spot, competition is fierce and prices have been absurdly high, so we've never been particularly interested in marketing that way.

However, a young man came earlier this year with an interesting proposition. Asakusa Station on the Ginza Line was planning to install a large touch-enabled screen with tourist information in multiple languages, and he wanted us to be a part of it. Not only that, but his price was substantially lower than anything the previous salespeople had ever presented to us, and this was for something more exciting than a pamphlet.

Up until now, the majority of our customers have been people who discovered us online, so they don't really care much about running into information about us in the train station. But with our upcoming move to the first floor of our building, and with the surging numbers of international tourists coming to Japan, we decided to take a chance.

The cool new screen introduces 30 different companies in a grid, presenting the information in five languages (Japanese, English, Korean, and Traditional and Simplified Chinese) alongside a digital map and paper maps. The companies' logos all get shuffled periodically so no one company is permanently placed higher than any others.

The map is interactive, and you can find out more about the other companies by touching their logos on the right or their names on the map. It's fun and easy to use, and we hope more visitors to the Asakusa neighborhood will enjoy it and find us a little more easily!

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I was asked a few weeks back to give a short interview for a podcast episode, and learned this morning that it is now 'on air'.

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I was asked a few weeks back to give a short interview for a podcast episode, and learned this morning that it is now 'on air'. It was for The Biblio File, a podcast run by Nigel Beale, which as you will know from the title is mostly concerned with book-related matters.

My episode is here, and you can access it from that page, or download it for later listening ...

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Some photos and news about new cherry wood!

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We have been talking on the Twitch stream recently about some cherry wood we just found, and - finally - I have collected together some of the photos ...

These next few photos were taken at a lumber dealer over in the Kiba district of Tokyo, which has been the lumber wholesale market for generations. One of the dealers we got a bit of wood from last year has been 'on the lookout' for some cherry for us, and when he got these pieces a short time ago, he gave me a call.

The tree was cut down just a couple of weeks before this, up in Akita Prefecture. We want wood that has been cut at the end of winter, before the moisture begins to rise through the trunk. This will greatly reduce drying time ...

This isn't a very large trunk, and wouldn't give wood wide enough for prints of the traditional o-ban dimensions, but many of the prints we publish are smaller, and this piece looks like it might make blocks just suitable for our Ukiyo-e Heroes designs.

So I bought the widest of the pieces, and arranged for the dealer to slice it up to my specifications. We hauled it into a nearby re-sawing operation, and after I drew a provisional slicing pattern on the end, they clamped it to the 'train' of their massive bandsaw, and we got to work ...

Here's the initial cut, which exposed the inner surfaces, giving us a better idea of the structure of the log:

Based on what we found - there were some splits inside the wood - I adjusted my instructions to them, and we cut it up in a way that hopefully provides us with the most useable pieces.

We then loaded it into a rental truck, and brought it home.

Hauling it up to the third floor of our Mokuhankan workshop is not my part of the job!

It'll be years before we can actually use this wood, as it first has to be thoroughly dried. But drying isn't just a matter of tossing it into a corner and letting it sit. There is some important preparation to do, and the first step is to get rid of the bark. This is for two reasons: one is the the moisture is more free to escape the wood if the bark is removed, and the second is that it is quite common for larvae to be present under or in the bark, and the last thing we want is to come back in a couple of years to find that our wood is full of holes.

The next concern is that if the outer surface of the lumber dries too quickly, it will split and check. So we coat the ends and centre of each piece with a light glue mixture ...

... and cover it with newsprint. We leave the corners and edges open, and this will perhaps help the wood to dry out a bit more evenly.

Sometime later in the month, when we next rent a truck (perhaps after finishing the major construction downstairs), we'll take this wood over to our Ome workshop, where it will be stacked carefully and tagged with the date we prepared it.

Come back in a few years to see the next stage! :-)

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Construction continues moving forward, and we now have a new attention-grabbing poster outside the front of our shop.

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Hello everyone! This is Cameron here with another update on our shop. Construction continues moving forward, and we now have a new attention-grabbing poster outside the front of our shop. Continue reading to read about and see pictures of what's bringing new customers in!

This morning while I was outside taking pictures of the new storefront, I was asked several times, "What kind of shop is this?" and "Are you open?"

As some of you may have heard this morning during the live stream on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/japaneseprintmaking), Dave mentioned the effect this new poster had on the shop yesterday. While the staff were running Print Parties upstairs, he got some work done down on the first floor to prepare for our shop's upcoming move downstairs, and one of the tasks was mounting on the wall by the entrance this enormous blown-up version of our famous Rickshaw Cart image from the Ukiyo-e Heroes series.

This is what it looks like in the evening.

Even though our shop had already closed, once this bright sign was up and illuminated, he said that a large number of people noticed the brightly lit image and asked him about Mokuhankan while he was outside doing construction work. Several then went upstairs with Dave and bought some prints!

Having a street-level entrance surrounded by inviting images will make a big difference in our number of walk-in customers, and we are excited for the change. We just hope we can also keep up with making enough prints for everyone!

So, to answer those customers' questions: Mokuhankan is a woodblock print shop utilizing traditional techniques and tools to create a variety of beautiful woodblock prints from classical and modern designs. And yes, we are planning to stay open throughout the entire transition period from the second floor down to the first. We hope to see you here soon!

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We have just completed the printing of another edition taken from the old Doi Hanga blocks that we are holding here.

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We have just completed the printing of another edition taken from the old Doi Hanga blocks that we are holding here.

It was just about a year ago that our young printer Ayumi-san made our first edition of this design, and it didn't last long in our catalogue and online shop. We had initially thought it might be a bit dark and gloomy for many people's taste, but we were wrong ... it became one of our most popular prints.

After she left to have her baby, we had nobody else on staff who could produce this design, but a few weeks back, I decided to give the blocks to our printer Shun Yamamoto, the young man who has been making our Great Waves for the past half year or so, working under older printer Kenichi Kubota.

He was glad to have the change to try something different, as he has never done any of this shin-hanga work before, but he had Ayumi's proofs and progress sheets to help him work it out, and the results are very nice ...

It's in our catalogue here.

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We have made some major progress with preparation for the move into the first floor. Over the last two days we renovated the sign!

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We have made some major progress with preparation for the move into the first floor. Over the last two days we removed the old baren sign, cleaned it, lowered the brackets the held it into place, and then put the sign back up. Keep reading to see how it went!

We are closed every Tuesday, so we decided to do the majority of the work on Tuesday when we would not have too many visiting customers. We arranged for a scaffolding rental company to drop off a two-floor scaffolding tower early in the morning, and we put it all together so we could reach the sign.

The next step was cleaning up the area around and below the sign. Breaking stuff is fun!

After cleaning that all up, we took a close look at what we had to work with and planned how to bring the sign down and utilize the materials that were already in place. This took some thinking and a trip to the hardware store / home center, but with quick thinking from Dave and Aoyama-san, a great solution was found.

To move forward, we removed the main visible part of the sign and washed it off. While doing that, others unbolted the sign's frame and tied it in place on top of the scaffolding.

We then prepared the new mounting location and got the frame in place again. With daylight running out, we took a break overnight.

Today, we took some time finalizing the new brackets and remounting the sign. I think it looks pretty great!

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