I love watching masterful craftsmen at work and I've long been interested in woodblock prints and printmaking in general. Hasui Kawase might just be the master of printmaking and design. I've found that watching someone who knows exactly what they're doing at work to be extremely helpful (duh) in understanding the process and getting better at it myself.
Short films like this, so well-composed and charmingly executed, are also incredibly relaxing. This isn't a how-to, it's more of an appreciation of mastery, materials, time and Japan. It's from 1955, commissioned for an English audience. This video has some of the qualities of an old Eames film, and not just because of the year it was released. It cares for its subject, it's curious about the process, it's altogether very pleasant. The short isn't entirely representative of the studio, which normally used a mix of Japanese and Western techniques, but is a beautiful little capsule into traditional craftsmanship nonetheless.
And if you've ever looked at /traditional Japanese woodlbock prints and thought, that's just too beautiful, how do they do it? This is a partial answer. Really though, I have no idea how anyone makes anything so strikingly beautiful. Take a look at some of Hasui Kawase's other work.
