Taku-Hon

Over the last two days I have attended a workshop on Taku-hon printing. This is an ancient Chinese technique although the name derives from Japan. I went to try to see if I could create textures similar to those found in a book titled The Ship that Sailed to Mars by William M Timlin (Fig 1).

Fig 1

To my surprise the technique allows for far more experimental and varied use than I had imagined. One really useful technique involved taking three dimensional objects and then printing from them. We wrapped the wet paper around whatever we decided, my example is that of a small drill (Fig 2). Once the paper had been worked into the grooves or details of the item we would then let it dry out until we felt ready to print. The item could then be inked using pads and the finished print might give  the object a brand new life. The print might not seem recognisable to the item itself but this was what seemed the most interesting to me. My example of a drill is shown below with a few other examples and the description sheet which gives more details about the technique itself. Prior to the weekend I had thought that my presentation would be unlikely to include this workshop, but this has not only shown me a new method of working it has shown me a new way to represent things in a totally different way and so will now be included.

Fig 2