Mexico Border Print Beginnings

I started printing the Mexico Border print today. For financial reasons I've been using Rives Heavyweight paper for my most recent moku hanga, but today I did a few first impressions on some Echizen Kozo, and I remembered why I love this paper. Compared to Rives it takes way less baren pressure to make a good impression, it has much more character and luminosity, and the printing surface is extremely smooth. It's delicious paper, and I'll be using it for this entire series of prints.

Also for financial reasons, I've decided to work with the reduction method as much as possible (recutting the same block over and over as opposed to using a new block for every color). I'm using 18" x 24" (45.7 x 61 cm) shina plywood blocks at $25 each for these large prints, so the reduction method will allow me to use just 1 or 2 blocks for each print. This will be a small edition of 15 prints or less.



The three impressions in the photo above were taken from an uncarved block, using acetate to mask off certain areas.



Then I drew on the block to guide the first carving.