More Sizing experiments: "Flash" sizing with a summer recipe of nikawa and alum.

 
I did manage to sneak into the studio long enough to set up and size a dozen sheets of paper.  Now they're hung out to dry and will need to "settle" for a week or two before I can test the paper to see if this ratio was suitable for these papers, in this weather.  It wasn't perfect. The big brush works, but it tends to dump a lot of size at the beginning of the stroke across the paper, and much less at the end, and getting that right takes practice and changes with the papers. Since I was trialing a few sheets of several different papers, when I sort of got the hang of it for one paper, I had to switch to a new paper. In a couple, I had to go back over the sheet a second time--where the brush had skipped or left a puddle and on the heavy cellulose paper--I got some wrinkles that will be permanent (and those sheets will have to be cut down to smaller sizes to get rid of the damaged parts).  After a couple of weeks, I'll have a trial printing of a simple image on small pieces of each paper to see how much the absorb or resist the color.  The fish-poacher and small hot-plate worked well for warming the size, I'm still not sure if I did a better job with the bigger brush.  As I mentioned above, ideally, each paper will have a "best" recipe for size for moku hanga, and this ratio of glue and alum will change with the season (more glue in the summer/less in the winter) and the less alum added the better. I tried this recipe a few years ago (a total disaster) as it was on cheap, locally available, mostly pulp papers with just a small amount of kozo fiber and I ended up just gluing all the sheets together.  With nearly the same recipe, on good almost 100% kozo papers, the size goes on smoothly (mostly) and I could see it got absorbed into the paper almost immediately. I'm curious to see how much my inept handling of the brush will affect the final paper, and try to tease out how much is my glue/alum ration and how much is just my inexperience with the sizing brush (dosa bake).

All hung up to dry: Torinoko  Kozo, Kozo thick natural, Hosho Professional, Kochi white.

Here's a buckle/kink that won't go away.

Paper Trials and Tribulations

My favorites of this mosaic are the maybe "Hosho Select?" top row L; and the bottom R, Shin Hosho(from Intaglio Printmakers).

I have continued to try to locate a reliable source of sized, student-grade paper suitable for general work and student workshops.
My favorites for my own work, the reliable and consistent papers that always print beautifully for moku hanga are still Echizen kozo and Kizuki Hanga and Nishinouchi (from McClains in the US) and Mawata light and Kihada Light and Shin Hosho--all via Woodlike Matsumura in Japan or Intaglio Printmakers in the UK.  But these papers run from $20-45$/sheet and I'm always looking for a paper I can get in Italy that is suitable for general work.

So I was very pleased when the Awagami paper factory started to begin to market their art and printmaking papers in the West.  In a packet I received for my entry in a recent show, I received a selection of printmaking papers from Awagami.  I pulled out the ones that looked like they'd be workable for moku hanga--either by feel or from their descriptions.

I also did a series of test prints, trying out this simple 4-block print to see how each would print and hold up to the several layers and colors.

The etagami drawing above was done by a 12-year old neighbor.  I cut it as a 4-block simple woodblock print with 2 bokashi layers and no background.

For comparison: here is the same print on two western papers;
Zerkall Smooth and Annigoni

Zerkall smooth

Annigoni a 100% cotton watercolor paper from Magnani

Based on these trials; I chose a couple papers for my recent workshop.
In addition to the double weight coated Bond paper that I use for proofing.
I cut up sheets of Zerkall Smooth, Magnani incisioni for European papers and based on the above tests the Hosho Select and Okawara Select from the Awagami line of editioning papers.

The latter papers are now available in Europe and I was pleased that these two midrange papers were both listed as suitable for water-based woodblocks on the Awagami site and confirmed in my trials.

Unfortunately, the paper that arrived was different in the hand than the papers I'd tested.
The Hosho select (top L above), while being listed as good for water-based woodblock prints is  is listed in the Awagami catalog as Unsized(that's not good) and a laid paper....just like the paper that arrived....but UNLIKE the paper I tested which acted like my old favorite and heavily sized Shin Hosho and had NO laid lines......
And when I went to dampen the paper I had carefully pre-cut for my students.....It clearly sucked up the water like blotter paper and was too soft to be workable.
The Okawara Select was the same as in my trials, but at the larger size I gave my students it too was  a little too soft, and since they didn't carve deeply or cleanly enough, most got spotting and ruined prints as the paper was a little too soft and floppy for beginners.

So, I'll have to look again at the others: the shiramine and bamboo papers didn't print badly and I'll try a few more before I decide what to try for my next class.

Crumbs, size, paper and glue

I carved and printed a circular bokashi/shading to each donut during the printing phase as one of the impressions of my donut print.

This is what lies under the marble dust"powdered sugar".
And here's the block it printed from:

Then, another block, fairly similar but with the donut shapes just slightly smaller was used to print a mixture of gum arabic and paste transferring the glue lightly with the baren to the surface of the paper.
I then sifted (I used a very fine tea seive) very finely ground marble dust (used for gesso) onto the damp glue and then tapped it off.
Despite being almost talc-like in consistency it fell in smallish granules (I think due to electrostatic charges) but gave pretty close to the effect I wanted.
(I had also tried talc and rabbit skin glue as alternatives). The talc worked great but the print smelled like a beauty parlor and while Marble dust is inert and safe to work with the talc isn't really good to breathe so I didn't want to be dusting it on 20-30 prints.).
I wasn't too sure how permanent my "sugar" printing would be so I made sure there was a good layer of color underneath in case the sugar falls off (It's pretty heavy and seems to like to shed of rub off if you touch it). But there's a donut underneath just in case.

Although it might have been more coherent to print these sketches first, I wanted to include some of the preparatory drawings that I used to create this print.
I can't remember if it was from a dream, or just something I jotted in while on the phone or doing something else but this print started off as a sketch pretty much like these later ones, done to try to fit the paper size restrictions for the exchange I was participating in.
It went through lots of iterations and originally would have been a broader/bigger format. However, the Baren Forum exchange #54 for which this was my entry had a defined size: Hosoban,
which would have traditionally come from a half sheet; torn again into vertical thirds giving a pronounced vertical/horizontal axis at 5.7" x 13".



Meanwhile, while back in the US I ordered some new papers to try out hoping to find some papers to bring back to Italy.
The paper I hoped to use, Kizuki Kozo from the Japanese Paper Place in Toronto, they recommended as one of their favorite already-sized papers for moku hanga.
It's a lovely paper but thinner than I had hoped (40g/m2) and felt pretty soft, with some fibers already visibly protruding on the surface.
And indeed, it proved to be a little too soft and lightly sized for my purposes as on the first 1-2 impressions the paper seemed to stick to the block/get surface abrasions and the finished proofs were a little too matte and soft in color (a sign of not enough size).
So just after starting my actual print run I actually abandoned the 26 sheets I had cut of this paper and had to cut down new paper made up of what I had on hand in Italy.
( I had two full sheets of Kihada--a heavy mulberry/pulp paper from Japan (Woodlike Matsumura), a few small pieces of Echizen Kozo (McClains), and some midweight kozo/pulp paper whose name had fallen off last year.).
I cut these down, dampened them and these became the final prints--
(with the addition of 4-5 of the original kizuki kozo that I kept printing on for reference).

Meanwhile, I still have the 26 pieces of Kizuki Kozo that I had started to print on--the first yellow background bokashi got printed before I pulled them out of the stack... so I decided I will have another go in the future but with additional size.

Just before heading back to the US this week, I mixed up a batch of winter size and once they were dry I re-sized them with a mixture of 5g alum/17g glue to 1L water. (It might be too strong as there is some size already on this paper and they ended up a little too "shiny").

These have since been dried; and put aside to settle/age. They'll be ready to print on when I head back to Florence in January.

I hope to have a go at a variant printing:
I'd like to cut another block; I still want to see what that wavy oak block from my first post/idea will print as a background and I think I'd like to play with a blue/gray background and splotches to make it a little more subtle.
So stay tuned for a second state.

Size Experiments: some results

Sized Paper: Lite size Left/Heavy size Right

I'll lead in with the results and discuss the nuances after.

I can detect very little difference in the prints printed on my heavily sized vs. lightly sized paper. The bigger surprise was that there was little difference on the paper that had NO size.

My experiments are with a paper called Hosokawa and is imported in Europe by Japico ( a wholesale paper importer). The booklet at the store where I bought it lists it as: 90%Kozo 10% pulp and weight 39g/M2.
(However--different sources list the same paper as having 20%-40% pulp and I expect the proportion has changed in the last years.) There are other papers listed in their catalog with heavier weights and higher kozo percentages that weren't available at my local store but would be worth trying to find or convince them to add/order. (I'd rather try sizing a 70g/m2 100% kozo paper...).

The store-side sizing test...( a small amount of saliva placed on a corner of the paper) shows that it is rapidly absorbed into a big wet spot---showing that the paper isn't sized. (Do this discreetly--the owners aren't keen on you touching the paper much less spitting on it...).

My first sizing attempt of this paper: 40g glue and 20alum to 1L water was unsuccessful. The paper stuck to itself and dried wavy, puckered and uneven.
There were however some decent pieces within the whole sheet and these I cut out and have used for this trial.
This is called HS (heavy size). There is a slight sparkle/glisten to the paper which means there is a little too much alum or it wasn't fully dissolved.(New Hosho paper--available from Woodlike Matsumura in Japan has similar sparkle).

My second sizing attempt used 14g Glue and 5g alum per Liter water.
Because in the second try I didn't size all the way to the end I have some strips that are partly sized on one half and unsized on the other.

HS is heavy size; LS is light size; NS is NO size.

Sized Paper LS Left/HS Right: light betaban block and bright yellow (2 impressions)

Sized Paper: NS (no size) Left/Light size (LS) Right (see arrows)

Multiple impressions(10?) Each sheet is 1/2 LS and 1/2 NS (see initials/arrows) Since these were registration mishaps--I printed them a little more aggressively after--darker colors/more layers to see what would happen.

Results Comments:
While printing, the unsized portion did tend to pill/pull up a little bit but as I continued printing this was less of an issue and by the end at 10-11 impressions it was still printing ok. The unsized portion is perhaps a little less brilliant/vibrant. In the half LS/half NS you can see a line of demarcation so there is a difference but it would be hard to tell which was which if they were unlabelled.
In the top photo; the dark cherry red background has at least 5 layers of printed pigment--that is a fair amount of printing for a light-weight paper but it tolerated it well. (light yellow beta ban;carmine twice;cad red/carmine mix once; pale green wash once;keyblock).
The heavy sized paper seemed to allow the pigment to rest a bit more on the surface but that was more noticeable in the first few impressions (see the yellow arrows) but there was little difference at the end. It didn't resist the pigment at all and I had no trouble printing on it (there was no resist).
This is a lighter paper than I usually use. At 39g/M2 it is fairly transparent and soft and in the first impressions it was probably a bit too damp. I'm not sure if I could handle a bigger sheet when damp. The small size of this sample and the small paper size (4" x 8") and the fact that I was intermittently switching from different sized papers may have altered the results; a bigger sheet might have revealed differences not visible on small printed surfaces. The unsized paper printed surprisingly well and I expect it would be serviceable if I keep the board/printing fairly "dry".

P.S. I did the saliva test again once the paper was dried...my little gob of spit didn't absorb at all in the LS and HS portions of my printed paper--but got soaked up instantly in the NS portion.
P.S.S. I also sized a piece of Japanese Hosho (probably 100%pulp) from a different store--it tried to fall apart as I was sizing it but once sized (LS) it printed ok too. See photo below:

LS Japanese "Hosho" content unknown but looks like 100% pulp/sulfite