Jan 19.07 -> Plate 2

Today I started in on the second of 6 plates for my Robot hanga print. I magaed to get about half of it cut, and its coming along well. This plate is fairly easy as there isn't much detail, and its pretty much all straight cuts. One difficulty that I'm encountering is the hardness of the wood. I choose my wood because it was quite hard, and could hold up to the detail of some of the areas in my design, but its also been the downside to much of the project so far. It is really tough to clear the open sections of the plate, and I'm worried that I'm killing my tools doing so. I'll have to make a trip to the knife store to get them properly affter this plate is finished......... fortunately its only 200 yen per tool.

In other news, I'm starting the preliminary sketches and designs for my Takayama exchange. The trade goes down in April, so I have to get cracking to make sure that I have enough time to get it all done. I'm planning a slighly ambitious project for this next print which will have me trying some embossing in combination with inking.............. I'm hoping it will all work out well and I'll learn a little in the process! I'll be seeking guidence from my Sensei along the way though.

LAiNE