Mike Lyon

Painting Drawing Printmaking Japanese Woodblock Printing Furniture Lighting

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Two small woodcuts using a wedged registration jig

September 14, 2017 By Mike Lyon

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Many mokuhanga (Japanese technique woodcut) printers are using an L-shaped kento registration jig. This is so each block can be carved without registration kento and a corner pushed into the L-shaped jig during printing. One disadvantage of this method is that the block and jig can easily shift during handling and printing so registration is insecure.

By wedging the block into a somewhat fancier jig, the block is held securely without shifting and the jig can be made so that the printing surface of the block is higher than the jig while the kento are on level with the printing surface. This allows very tight and certain registration and very clean margins without having to handle the damp block between printings.

I made a couple of prints using this jig, an aizuri-e of clover and a sumi-e of blades of grass.

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Clover, 2017, 12 x 12 inches, 12 blocks, edition of 12

Clover, 2017, 12 x 12 inches, 12 blocks, edition of 12

Grass 24 x 19 inches from 12 blocks, edition of 8 (image area)

Grass 24 x 19 inches from 12 blocks, edition of 8 (image area)

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CNC carving grass blocks in wedged jig on machine bed

Carved blocks stacked up and ready to print

grass block wedged in jig during printing

notch for registration of side of paper

Detail of corner-of-paper registration (kento)

Printing setup for Grass – delivery drawer above, then printing area, takeup drawer below

Printing setup for grass

Grass, 2017, 24 x 19 inches, 12 blocks, edition of 8

2017-09-14 Clover 12 x 12 inches, 19.5 x 19.5 inch sheet 12 blocks, edition of 12

Filed Under: Featured, Woodblock

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