Discover Top Posts Tagged with #suihi

Just Because! #9 Twitter Illustration - Suihi

Mokuhanga at Geidai Here’s the promised post from my visit to Tokyo University of the Arts. The printmaking workshops are a part of the Painting Department, they’re spacy, well-lit and, much like our workshops back in Stockholm, a charming mixture between well-equipped and slightly worn. Without much further ado:

1. Grad student Fernando Saiki showing F and yours truly the different coils of his baren. And showing in this case means touching. <3 2. His knife collection. As a self-taught woodblock carver/printer, he started out in Brazil using right hand beveled knife despite being left-handed. When he much later got a knife that was beveled for left hand use he realized that he had gotten used to using the “wrong” knives, and thus still does so today. (Not pictured: the shop’s sharpening and polishing area) 3. Color block Fernando wanted to print before we interrupted his day. I also confused some Bolivian and Brazilian cities when trying to say something witty, so he sure was having a blast. The wood is shina plywood. 4. Marubake and other brushes for inking up the blocks. 5. Shark skin. So cool. I either never knew or had forgotten that when marubake are made they get put into sth like a pan with the hairs down to melt the hairs to an even length. Those ends then get “broken” or split by scrubbing the shark skin with the brush. Continued use wears the brushes down, so the shark sees enough action re-conditioning them. 6. Printing setup. 7. The mokuhanga part of the printshop, cushion and printing table already set up on the tatami. (Here’s a pic from a previous post, showing the area in the back.) 8. Yeah brushes! 9. Carving is all about those hairlines. An old cherry block from the teaching archive. 10. A short walk from the school is Kinkaido, a beautiful little pigment shop. I ended up buying quite a lot of suihi “mud” pigments. Read an external blog post about them here. Next post: Visiting itazulitho!