Uploaded January 2015 | Updated September 2026, 18 hours ago
This set of videos will document the production of the new reproduction of Hokusai's 'The Great Wave' being made by Dave Bull and his Mokuhankan woodblock print workshop in Tokyo, in early 2015.
The print is being made as a 'reward' for backers of the Kickstarter project run in the autumn of 2014 by Mokuhankan to gather support for their new shop in Asakusa, Tokyo.
The print will be carved by Dave, proofed by him once the blocks are ready, and then produced by his printing staff.
This set of videos will document the production of the new reproduction of Hokusai's 'The Great Wave' being made by Dave Bull and his Mokuhankan woodblock print workshop in Tokyo, in early 2015.
The print is being made as a 'reward' for backers of the Kickstarter project run in the autumn of 2014 by Mokuhankan to gather support for their new shop in Asakusa, Tokyo.
The print will be carved by Dave, proofed by him once the blocks are ready, and then produced by his printing staff.








![Woodblock Printing Process ... in 3-D spatial audio
In this video, Tokyo-based woodblock printmaker Dave Bull shows the entire process of making a batch of prints (8 sheets) from blank paper to finished print - in POV style (from the printers Point Of View) - with each of the colour impressions happening in an uncut, unedited, uninterrupted flow. The viewers can get a very good feeling for the rhythm of the process, and can see just how the pigment/paste balance is controlled along the way.
As a kind of bonus, the entire video was recorded using binaural microphones embedded in Daves ears - you hear _exactly_ what he heard, at every step of the way. (Use headphones!) The recording of each segment was done starting around 3:00 am, when Asakusa is as quiet as possible, but even then, there are residual sounds interrupting along the way (the occasional truck passing by, some rainfall for a few of the impressions, and unavoidably a large air conditioner on a building a few blocks away …)
The print used for this demonstration is ‘The Demon King’, which was designed for us by Jed Henry, creator of the famous Ukiyo-e Heroes prints. It is available as part of our Portraits Set #1’ subscription series; information here: https://mokuhankan.com/subscriptions/portraits.html
[Note: there is no narration included in this video, in an attempt to bring you into the undisturbed world of a printers work. If there is enough interest, we could perhaps upload a second cut of this video, with Dave explaining things along the way ...]
The Mokuhankan website:
https://mokuhankan.com/index.html
Jed Henry’s Ukiyo-e Heroes:
https://ukiyoeheroes.com
Our Twitch stream (live three times a week):
https://www.twitch.com/japaneseprintmaking
The Mokuhankan Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/mokuhankan Woodblock Printing Process ... in 3-D spatial audio](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tGnd5w_a2q8/mqdefault.jpg)

