I have been fascinated by Ukiyo-e woodblock prints since the first time I saw them. I watched a bunch of David Bull's videos and since he makes it look so easy I figured it shouldn't be that hard...right?

So I bought a set of Pfeil carving knifes, I grabbed a piece of playwood and long story short...I failed miserably doing it on wood. Everything tore itself apart:

(Well not that miserably, but it was hardly what I expected!)

No fucking idea how Michael Halbert did it here 😮 (note to self, drop him an email).

Further investigating I discovered Emil Salmin's art and insta fell in love with it. I figured that maybe he had some tips, so I dropped him an email and very kindly he answered all my questions and we exchanged some impressions. My conclusions:

• Japanese ukiyo-e is done on cherry wood, which is very dense and hard and holds details greatly
• Cherry wood is either impossible to find here or extremely expensive
• Go for linoleum (cheap and holds detail greatly)

And here is the result:

I loved the process, doing handwork so intense is definetly a breath of fresh air after so much screen time and automation 🖤.

Materials used:

• Brown Linoleum
• PFEIL 4 carving knives set
• REIG roller
• Wooden spoon (used as baren)
• College LINOL 39 700 black ink

Vilva.