Do you remember that a while ago I told you about visiting the pharmacist for some of my printmaking supplies? I went back to see him the other day to pick up something else that had run low - my alcohol. A bottle of 99.99% pure ethanol. The first time I asked him for this, some years ago, he looked at me a bit quizzically, and perhaps recently he wonders why I use so much of it ...

Do you know why printmakers need to keep pure alcohol handy? Of course it's not for drinking. If you've had some experience with Japanese 'nihonga', perhaps you know. Some of the 'ganryo' pigments do not dissolve well in water, so before they can be used they must be soaked in alcohol. This softens them up, and they can then be blended together in proper proportion to create many colours, ready to be applied to the woodblocks.

People working with oil paints need to keep a very wide variety of special products on hand for their work. Woodblock printmaking though, needs very few. A piece of wood, some paper, then pigments, paste and water. That's about it. Plus, an occasional drop of alcohol ...

Some of the older printers I have met use o-sake for this job (shokunin always have plenty of this on hand!), but I don't like the idea of having a 'sugary' residue left behind in the dried and finished prints, so I use this pure 'medicinal' alcohol from the pharmacy.

Maybe it'll help keep away the bookworms!