Coats of many colours

I’ve got into the habit of watching a soap opera while I eat my lunch. It is in unfathomable Japanese, but I have a strong suspicion that it is sponsored by a fashion house. Every episode features the same pretty heroine who stands outside in a wide variety of elegant winter coats having angst ridden conversations with other women in other coats. I invent dialogue from the Archers and it works just fine (one of my finest achievements while here has been to convert American Betsy into an avid Archers fan thanks to BBC iPlayer).

I have also come to the end of my first set of editions. The terms of my contract were to supply three copies of three prints to the institute. Producing the woodcuts was hard, but nothing prepared me for the horrible gamble of printing: the potential for mistakes is huge and the further down the line I got with each print so the investment of time and effort started to stack against the knowledge that one small slip would write off a print. My last print required twenty three separate passes (a pass being to ink and print the block) which, multiplied by the fifteen prints I started with, adds up to an awful lot of room for error. By the end of yesterday I was twenty passes in, had nine good prints and a rotten bad back and head. This morning I finished: eight good prints and a handful of painkillers.

Now I am preparing to go again, this time editioning on hand made kozo and washi papers from the lovely paper mill we visited. It ups the anti considerably to know I’m now working with precious paper and I’m beginning to feel I left my comfort zone back in the UK by mistake.

You can see my work in progress at www.lauraboswell.co.uk/Japan_thumbs1.html