Mokuhankan Print Arrived

My print from Mokuhankan.com arrived from Japan today. It is a lovely print of turtles swimming carved by David Bull and printed by one of the Mokuhankan printers. You can see it at Hokusai Turtles - Swimming Turtles (I do not want to link to the image). Dave is one of the few people left in the world making wood block prints in the Japanese tradition. You can learn more about him from his woodblock.com website, which is one of the earliest examples of a website showing an artist's works and how they were made (although Dave does not consider himself and artist, but a crafts person).

The carving of the water is graceful. I love the way the turtle on the surface, the water pattern and the gray shadow of the submerged turtle create layers. I thought it was more effective than the original carp print (from the lovely Hanga Treasure Chest series) the water design was borrowed from.

The visual idea was adapted from Hokusai Manga, the famous collection of books of 'sketches' and designs issued in the early 1800's, according to Dave.

You can explore the Mokuhankan catalog by clicking on the little advertisement I run to support Dave's project to give wood block print makers a place to sell their works.