stick of solid Chinese ink of good
quality, and break it with a hammer into fragments; put these to soak in
a pot with water for three or four days. (The quality of the sticks of
Chinese ink varies greatly. The cheap sticks make a coarse and gritty
ink which does not print well.) Day by day pour off the water, adding
fresh, so that the glue that soaks out of the softened black fragments
is removed. Three days is usually long enough for this. If left too long
the whole mass goes bad and is spoiled. When the black mass is soft and
clean drain off the water and rub the ink smooth in a dish with a bone
palette knife. It is then ready for use, but would rapidly go bad if not
used up at once, so that a preservative is necessary to keep a stock of
ink in good condition. An effective method is to put the ink at once
into a well-corked, wide-mouthed bottle. To the under side of the cork
is nailed a little wad of unsized paper soaked with creosote. By this
means ink can be kept in perfect condition for weeks or months. A drop
of fresh creosote should occasionally be put on the wad fixed to the
cork.

[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Cork of ink-bottle with wad for
preservative.]

Fresh ink may at any time be obtained rapidly in small quantities by
rubbing down a stick of Chinese ink on a slab in the ordinary way, but
this is very laborious, and is only worth while if one needs a small
quantity of a glossy black, for which the rubbed-down ink containing all
its glue is the best.

COLOUR

Any colour that can be obtained in a fine dry powder may be used in
wood-block printing. Some artists have succeeded in using ordinary
water colours sold in tubes, by mixing the colour with the rice paste
before printing; but the best results are obtained by the use of pure,
finely ground dry colour mixed only with water, the rice paste being
added actually on the block.

Most of the artists' colour merchants supply colour by weight in the
form of dry powder: any colour that is commonly used in oil or
water-colour painting may be obtained in this state. A stock of useful
colours should be kept in wide-necked bottles.

A few shallow plates or small dishes are needed to hold colour and a
bone or horn palette knife for mixing and rubbing the colour into a
smooth paste in the dishes. Small bone paper knives are useful for
taking colour from the bottles.

When the colour scheme of a print is made certain--and this is best done
by printing small exp