![\"working](\"http:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk:\/studiodiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Carrisbrooke-in-progress-300x180.jpg\")
<\/a>Japanese woodblock relies on a series of registration slots called Kento. These slots are cut by chisel onto the wood along with the block for printing and are crucial to lining up all the layers of the print into a full coloured picture. They act as a guide and the printing paper fits into them and is held in place to take the impression. Get any of the Kento slots a couple of mm out and the picture will be wonky. The print here has 18 different Kento slots (some of the blocks share a Kento, there are roughly 45 to 50 different woodblocks for this picture) and somewhere along the line I was out of sync.<\/p>\n
Trouble is that it isn\u2019t until I start printing that the problem becomes clear and even then it is seldom obvious just which kento is the problem and with several blocks sharing a kento, it could be just one of them that is out of line. The paper doesn\u2019t make things easy either: it must stay damp, consistently the same damp, or it changes dimension. The bigger the print, the bigger the distortion. This print is 120cm wide and the paper can change by as much as 4mm as it dries. It\u2019s easy to control if all goes to plan, but have a head scratching crisis of alignment and the paper is against me, drying out as I try to see the break in the chain of Kentos and adding to the confusion.<\/p>\n
In the end I did manage to get a finished print without the benefit any drips from my leaking nose, but it was a nightmare.<\/p>\n
![\"DSC_0234\"](\"http:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk:\/studiodiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/DSC_0234-300x186.jpg\")
<\/a>I would love you all to think that I have everything under control and things always go to plan, but it\u2019s not the case. I do get caught out, as I have here, and I am far from perfect. It\u2019s just that I tend not to talk about it much!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"