2nd Print of 2026

I’m sure many will recognise this design from the initial sketches of my previous print Ah, My Joints!

I had originally planned to have the grid of joints as the background with the hand holding the chisel and mallet as the main image, but reconsidered in the end. Well, fear not, I did not scrap it! Instead it gets its own print.

I must say, this has taken a lot of time. (That’s what happens when life takes over and you don’t do any carving for five months… oops.) It is also more ambitious than my last mokuhanga print. Look at all those wrinkles! Carving those fine lines was a test of patience but I think it has turned out really well. Did I make mistakes along the way? Absolutely. But hey, this is all new to me.

I even sharpened a carving tool for the first time! Had a mini sword fight with myself when I was finished —shing-shing! Because, how could I resist?

The next part is carving out the boarder and putting in those kento registration marks. My last prints came out slightly lopsided, so this time I’m going to get that right angle …right!

So, doing the maths…

I recorded the start and end time for every carving session I did on this woodblock. And so far:

336 minutes => 5 hrs 36 mins!

And still more to go~

I also video recorded some of the carving process (I actually did many but I lost the files, much to my heartbreak. Thankfully I still had three clips still on my camera’s SD card, so yay for small mercies) that I hope to make into a YouTube video, so keep on the lookout for that in the future!

Wish me luck!