I hope everyone’s year is starting out well! I’ve just come back from Brussels where I visited my friend Aude and spent the weekend working in her studio on a Mokuhanga Sisters project.
All 9 of us in the group worked in our own timezones across 6 countries over the weekend to carve a snake/moon image and print an editon of 25 postcard-sized prints.
I started by sketching a variety of snakes, then decided to create a snake and moon vase, working out if it should be a red vase on white, or a white vase on red.
I added some floral elements into the design, and then simplified it as much as possible to be able to carve it in one day.
I carved 2 blocks, the gold highlight block, which I printed first, and the red vase block.
All of us used the same red sumi ink from Nara, so that all our prints would match. We could add one extra colour, so I added an ochrey gold to the moon and added some gold shading inside the vase and in the pattern of the snake.
I printed the edition of 25 cards, and will add my chop when everything is properly dry!
It was a great experiment, and fun to know that the other Sisters were also printing, all around the world.