Last Week's Printing Progress

Having gotten my three large pieces of birch plywood carved, I spent the next few days starting the printing process. I've never used this paper before, Kizuki Kozo from The Japanese Paper Place in Toronto. It's sized, but it's fairly thin for mokuhanga, so I was nervous about how it would hold up with multiple overprintings. So far so good, although it's starting to stretch and distort a little. I'll see at the end if I can get it flat again or not.

Anyway, the paper is 24" x 40" (61 x 102 cm) which is the largest piece of paper I've ever tried to handle. Short of hiring an assistant just to help me get the paper onto the block, I knew I'd have to try something new. Friends on the Baren Forum had once suggested rolling as a possibility, so I tried that and it worked pretty well. I just picked up the roll, guided it into the kento, and then let it unfurl onto the inked block.

Here's how the print looked after three passes.

I still have to deepen the reflection under the hills before I move on to other areas of the print.