Chapter VII

. The ink is prepared as follows. Take a stick of solid Chinese ink of good quality, and break it with a hammer into fragments; put these to soak in a pot with water for three or four days. (The quality of the sticks of Chinese ink varies greatly. The cheap sticks make a coarse and gritty ink which does not print well.) Day by day pour off the water, adding fresh, so that the glue that soaks out of the softened black fragments is removed. Three days is usually long enough for this. If left too long the whole mass goes bad and is spoiled. When the black mass is soft and clean drain off the water and rub the ink smooth in a dish with a bone palette knife. It is then ready for use, but would rapidly go bad if not used up at once, so that a preservative is necessary to keep a stock of ink in good condition. An effective method is to put the ink at once into a well-corked, wide-mouthed bottle. To the under side of the cork is nailed a little wad of unsized paper soaked with creosote. By this means ink can be kept in perfect condition for weeks or months. A drop of fresh creosote should occasionally be put on the wad fixed to the cork.

[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Cork of ink-bottle with wad for preservative.]

Fresh ink may at any time be obtained rapidly in small quantities by rubbing down a stick of Chinese ink on a slab in the ordinary way, but this is very laborious, and is only worth while if one needs a small quantity of a glossy black, for which the rubbed-down ink containing all its glue is the best.

COLOUR

Any colour that can be obtained in a fine dry powder may be used in wood-block printing. Some artists have succeeded in using ordinary water colours sold in tubes, by mixing the colour with the rice paste before printing; but the best results are obtained by the use of pure, finely ground dry colour mixed only with water, the rice paste being added actually on the block.

Most of the artists' colour merchants supply colour by weight in the form of dry powder: any colour that is commonly used in oil or water-colour painting may be obtained in this state. A stock of useful colours should be kept in wide-necked bottles.

A few shallow plates or small dishes are needed to hold colour and a bone or horn palette knife for mixing and rubbing the colour into a smooth paste in the dishes. Small bone paper knives are useful for taking colour from the bottles.

When the colour scheme of a print is made certain--and this is best done by printing small experimental batches--it is a good plan to have a number of covered pots equal to the number of the different colour impressions, and to fill these with a quantity of each tint, the colour or colours being mixed smoothly with water to the consistency of stiff cream.

Some colours will be found to print more smoothly and easily than others. Yellow ochre, for instance, prints with perfect smoothness and ease, while heavier or more gritty colours tend to separate and are more difficult. In the case of a very heavy colour such as vermilion, a drop of glue solution will keep the colour smooth for printing, and less paste is necessary. But most colours will give good impressions by means of rice paste alone. It is essential, however, that only very finely ground colours of good quality should be used.

PASTE

A paste must be used with the colour in order to hold it on to the surface of the paper and to give brilliancy. The colour, if printed without paste, would dry to powder again. The paste also preserves the matt quality which is characteristic of the Japanese prints.

Finely ground rice flour may be obtained from grocery dealers. An excellent French preparation of rice sold in packets as _Crême de Riz_ is perfect for the purpose of making paste for printing. It should be carefully made as follows: While half a pint of water is put to boil in a saucepan over a small spirit lamp or gas burner, mix in a cup about two teaspoonfuls of rice flour with water, added little by little until a smooth cream is made with no lumps in it. A bone spoon is good for this purpose. Pour this mixture into the boiling water in the saucepan all at once, and stir well till it boils again, after which it should be left simmering over a small flame for five minutes.

When the paste has cooled it should be smooth and almost fluid enough to pour: not stiff like a pudding.

While printing, a little paste is put out in a saucer and replenished from time to time.

Fresh paste should be made every day.

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