About Mokuhanga - Japanese woodblock printing

Following on from Thursday's post, which highlighted two unusual media used in Heat 5 of Landscape Artist of the Year 2025, this post is about Mokuhanga - Japanese woodblock printing.

The other new media was alcohol inks which was covered in yesterday's post Alcohol Inks - information and WARNINGS about use!

Mokuhanga - Japanese woodblock printing

Image of tools used in the production of Japanese Woodblock printing
courtesy The Japanese Gallery article about woodblock printing

What's different about Mokuhanga

• best known for its use in the ukiyo-e artistic genre of single sheets
• widely used for text as well as images
• various woods can be used, but the preferred wood is cherry wood 
• uses water-based inks and Nori Starch paste, rather than oil based inks (which are typically used for woodblock printing in the West)
• inking is done with a brush rather than a roller.
• the baren used to press the ink into the paper is made from bamboo leaf and paper
• it produces more subtle prints rather than the bold coloured prints associated with oils

A team of people were usually involved in the production of japanese woodblock prints. These were:

• the publisher (who usually had overall control of the process), 
• the designer/artist, 
• the block cutter and 
• the printer.

The V&A has a section on Japanese ukiyo- prints

How does it work?

This is a very nice video of a Japanese Woodblock Printmaking Workshop - A Printer's Tools and Workspace - by a nice Japanese lady with very good English subtitles

I managed to translate one word - baren! ;)

 

Essentially, the process is....

• The artist creates a design and draws it onto thin washi (Japanese paper), called gampi
• This is glued face-down onto a plank of very close-grained wood, usually a block of smooth cherry or Shina ‘Tilla Japonica’ (Japanese Lime). Cherry wood is preferred because:
• it remains stable and does not warp in damp conditions
• it is robust enough to produce very many prints - but also soft enough to carve easily
• HOWEVER it is now difficult and very expensive to obtain
• Registration marks are created. In Japanese woodblock printing these are guide marks are called kento. They are carved into all blocks to make aligning the colours as easy as possible.
• Japanese woodcutting tools are then used to cut lines and remove sections where no ink is applied. These are similar but different to Western woodcut tools. Blades are sharpened using a wetstone. Carvers used to be considered experts after they had worked as a carver for 10 years
• if a black outline is to be used, this block is called the "key block"
• Colour dyes and pigments are mixed with a binding agent and then applied to the block.
• The ink is then spread evenly across the section of the block it relates to using a brush (which means different brushes for different colours). How it spreads depends on a number of variables which can all affect the quality of the print
• humidity, 
• dryness (the artist using Mokuhanga in the lAOTY episode suffered from printing outside when it was too hot)
• too much water, 
• too little water etc
• a flat hand-held tool called a baren is then used to press the printing paper against the woodblock to apply the ink to the paper in a circular or zigzag motion. 
• The word baren used by Western Printers was borrowed from the Japanese to describe what is used in western woodblock printing 
• but the latter does not tend to use the traditional Japanese baren which is made from bamboo leaves and paper
• each colour in a print has be printed from a separate block of wood - which is cut separately
• The traditional paper used commonly used for the final printing is called Hosho paper and is made of Mulberry tree bark fibres. The paper contains the lines of the tool used to produce it - much like laid lines in Western paper.
• The paper was sized front and back, prior to printing, using a mixture of glue, alum and water.
• There are traditional sizes for the paper used - set out in the Wikipedia article below.

This is another video where you can watch the actual process of a print being made with several colour layers.

More Information

• Woodblock printing in Japan | Wikipedia
• How Woodblock Prints are Made | Ukiyo-e Print Production | The Japanese Gallery
• Making a woodblock print | Edward Lupine Printing - a step by step explanation
• Mokuhanga: Japanese Woodblock Printing | Jacksons
• The Appeal Of Japanese Woodblock Printing
• Woods Used in Woodcut Printmaking
• Tools Used for Woodblock Cutting
• Eastern (Japanese-style) Woodblock Printing Process Explained
• Japanese Specialist Printmaking Papers

Tuition

• The King’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts has a course in Japanese Woodblock Printmaking in Colour: Bokashi in 21 – 25 July 2025

Resources

• Shepherds - Gampi Tissue
• Jackson's Art - Blocks & Plates for Woodblock Printing
• Handprinted - Magnolia Wood Block for Relief Printing