FindJPN blog
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Experience Japanese Traditonal Printing Skill
We went to one of our activity ‘’Hanga (woodcut) printing’’ with a French intern of FindJPN, Gauthier the other day. We’d like to introduce you that!
What is Hanga anyway?
Hanga is a Japanese traditional printing technique that started in Edo period (1603-1868). First, you divide the picture into each color, and carve wooden boards for each layer. Then you paint each wooden board, and print the colors on a piece of paper.
The pictures used in Hanga were portrait, scenery and daily life. It is a genre called ‘’Ukiyoe’’. Since Hanga can print many times the same picture, the prints were cheap. This made it possible for ordinary people in Edo period to purchase the low pieced pictures.
The traditional culture has been passed down to the present. In this activity, we learned the process of Hanga from a master of Hanga who actually inherited the tradition.Here is the master of Hanga!
He is very friendly and showed us how to make Hanga with detailed instructions.Here is the steps we have actually done.
1, Apply colors on the carved wooden board
2, put a piece of Japanese paper on the wooden board and rub
3, repeat the step 1 and 2 as many times as the number of the layers
Although I’m Japanese, It was my first time to appreciate and experience making Hanga. It was also the first experience for the French intern of FindJPN, Gauthier to experience and appreciate Hanga.
He was very impressed. Here is his comment.
The experience was great! We had interesting background explanations about history of hanga and its palace in Japanese traditional arts. The level of expertise of the Master was equally amazing, and we were all impressed by how good the final result looked!You can experience the Hanga activity from here.
(Coming Soon!!)
At FindJPN, we have many interesting activities that will make you experience Japanese traditional culture like Hanga. Check them out!
- Make Your Own Pottery- Bonsai : Japanese Art of Gardening
- Make Your Original Wind Chime in Tokyo
- Learn How to Make a Edo Wind Chime in Tokyo
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