IMC 2024 Echizen submission

This print was submitted by David Roon to the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference, held in Echizen, a region in Fukui Prefecture renowned for over 1,500 years of washi papermaking. As an IMC submission, the work would have been printed on Echizen kozo paper, the conference's signature support, and exhibited alongside contributions from mokuhanga practitioners worldwide. Roon's IMC entries typically demonstrate the water-based woodblock vocabulary he refined during his 2023 MI-LAB Basic Training Program A residency: hand-rubbed impressions made with the baren, layered transparent washes built up through multiple block passes, and careful registration using kento marks. The use of nori paste as a pigment binder, combined with sumi ink and mineral pigments, produces the characteristic tonal depth and matte surface of mokuhanga rather than the saturated opacity of oil-based relief printing. Within Roon's broader body of work, IMC submissions function as benchmark pieces — printed under residency conditions and shown to the international mokuhanga community, they document his ongoing engagement with the technique outside the studio context of MI-LAB.