Mt. Fuji Print: Hokusai's Print, Part 9

In this demonstration, you can notice my fingers are inked and because they are inked, they create smudges. Again, if you were in a printmaking class, this is definitely something that can make a grade from an A drop to a C, if there are smudges. In that case, you'd want to do it over again because you cannot erase the smudges, not even with white-out or white paper.

But as this is for you to see if you like printmaking and experiment with this medium, I am only again grading you on your effort. And I have smudges on my fingers as you see.

You will also notice that this is a process and time-sensitive project once you get to the inking stage. In this video and the next, I discuss why my print turned out so faded. This was because I waited too long between inking and printing.

You can also wet your paper, although I would suggest you experiment with this before you try the final printing image. This means that I would see that your paper can handle being wet, rather than disintegrating. Remember, as we discussed in Jim Dine's charcoal drawing demonstration, the tooth of the paper matters. The weight of the paper matters as well. If you are using regular computer paper, and you wet this paper, it will not work and will wrinkle too much. If you use drawing paper like Bristol or other sketchbook paper that has at least 50 to 100 lbs in all in the paper (it says on the cover) you can put this in water.

If this is really up your alley and you think you want to explore printmaking more, than go ahead and take the leap and you can use cold pressed watercolor paper. This paper has a lot of "teeth", meaning it is woven together strongly and as such you will need to put this paper into water. The best is to use a tub of some kind and that will be sufficient.

So with this in mind, I used drawing paper. As you can see in the next videos, mine did not turn out well. It was not because I didn't have enough ink or too much ink, rather it was because I waited too long between the inking and the final print.