an understanding of the secrets of aesthetic economy in
printing. One of the many paths to that experience is by way of the
craft of the wood-block printer.

CHAPTER VIII

Co-operative Printing

A print is shown at the end of this book (page 95) as an example of a
first experiment in co-operative printing. An actual print was needed to
illustrate the method of block printing, and the number required was too
great for a single printer to undertake. So the work was divided between
four printers (of whom the writer was one), working together. Each of us
had been accustomed to print our own prints in small batches of a dozen
or two at a time, giving individual care to each print. The printing of
2000 prints to a fixed type was a very different matter, and proved an
instructive and valuable experience. It was found that the printing of a
large number of successive impressions gave one an increasingly
delicate control of a block, and a high percentage of perfect
impressions. After the initial experiments and practice, the failures in
the later batches of the print were reduced to only 4 or 5 per cent. of
the completed prints. The work was done in batches of 250 prints, each
print receiving eight impressions, as shown on pages 98 to 109. Each of
the four printers took charge of a particular series of the blocks,
which were printed in a regular order. It was found most convenient to
print the key-block last of all, as the heavy blacks in it were inclined
to offset under the pressure of the baren and slightly soil the
colour-blocks, if the key-block was printed first, as is usually the
practice.

The colour-blocks were printed in the order in which they are placed in
the Appendix.

The best quality of work was done on nearly dry paper. The damping
sheets were placed among the new paper at the end of the day's work and
removed after ten or fifteen minutes, the printing paper then was left
standing over night between boards, ready for work in the morning, and
was not damped again until after receiving several impressions. Then it
was very slightly damped again by means of a damping sheet to every ten
or twelve prints placed there for a very few minutes.

As one printer finished the impressions from one of his blocks, the
batch of papers was passed on to the others, each in turn. In this way
three batches of 250 were printed without haste in one week, working
eight hours a day for five and a half days.

The c