of offsetting or marking
each other. Only an excessive use of colour, or the leaving of heavy
ridges of colour at the edges of the block by careless brushing, will
sometimes mark the next print on the pile. As in printing the key-block,
it is well to hold the brush quite upright for the last strokes across
the block, and always to give a full stroke across the whole length or
width of the form to be coloured.

As soon as one colour-block has been printed, the next may be taken and
printed at once, without fear of the colour running, even though the
fresh colour touches the parts already printed.

One by one each colour-block is printed in this way until the batch of
paper has been passed over the whole set of blocks composing the design
of the print. There may sometimes be an advantage in not printing the
key-block first, though as a rule it should come first for the sake of
keeping the later blocks in proper register. If the key-block is not
printed one cannot see how the colour-blocks are fitting. But in the
case of a sky with perhaps two or even three printings--a gradation and
a flat tone or two gradations--there is danger of blurring the lines of
the key-block, so that in such a case the sky should be printed first,
and then the key-block followed by the remaining colour-blocks.

At the end of a day's printing the prints may quite safely be left
standing together between the boards until the next day. For three days
the damp paper comes to no harm, except in hot weather, but on the
fourth day little red spots of mould begin to show and spread. It should
be remembered that freshly boiled paste is to be used each day.

DRYING OF PRINTS

When the prints are finished they should be put to dry as soon as
possible. If they are spread out and left exposed to the air they will
soon dry, but in drying will cockle, and cannot then be easily pressed
flat. It is better to have a number of mill-boards or absorbent "pulp"
boards rather larger than the prints, and to pile the prints and boards
alternately one by one, placing a weight on the top of the pile. The
absorbent boards will rapidly dry the prints and keep them quite flat.

Finished prints should be numbered for reference, and should, if printed
by the artist himself, also bear his signature --or some printed sign
to that effect. The number of prints obtainable from a set of blocks is
difficult to estimate. The Japanese printers are said to have made
editions of