Tiger

Mokuhanga

Made during a 5-day mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock cutting & printing) course, taught by the wonderful Nel Pak. What can I say – I’m in love. With the materials, the process, the slowness. Practising carving techniques with wood chips flying around and seeing the design come to life through process ‘rubbings’ in negative feels like magic and gets me into a state of meditative flow. Apart from the obvious cutting and printing, the process includes preparing paper (which needs to the correct amount of moist-but-not-too-moist before you can print on it), making sticky rice paste to use as binder for the paint, choosing, mixing and testing colours, setting up the table (with a range of sponges, water trays, brushes), and of course, cleaning..