Hey! I love your work, what kind of gouges do you use?

Thank you! For detailed work I’m using a long handled Kogatana from Michihamono, I use two sizes of U-gouges from them as well, and for background clearance, two sizes of Aisuki from Woodlike Matsumura. I like the long handled tools for handling and as you sharpen your tools, you can chip away the wood handle to reveal more metal, so they last a really long time.

The final scanned image to a project that spanned more than a year in the making. The end feels happy and sad, but also freeing to return to a backlog of other ideas.

The seal with the spots is based on one I swim with up here, a nod.

Wip.

Someone asked me the other day if I transfer images to the blocks I want to carve and the answer is no. Every print is essentially 3 separate art pieces, all sketched and done directly on the block. The pencil layout, which establishes the composition, the ink layout which sets up the loose guidelines I follow, and then finally, the carving itself, which is a completely different part of my brain to the last two stages.

Wip carving the last seal print. I always start with the crux of block first, which in this case is the head/whiskers

The final scanned image

Desk editions

I love your art so much! Thank you for sharing it here!

Thank you! :)

In the final stages of cleaning up the block.

Hey, I'm not sure if you've answered this before but are you alright with people getting tattoos inspired by your art? Not an exact copy by any means, but one of several reference images used to show my artist the movement and subject matter that I usually enjoy. Your seals are gorgeous and I'd like one of their cousins on my body if that's alright :^)

Of course you can get a tattoo using my art, just send a picture if you do! I’m fine with people using my art if it’s not for merchandise purposes, marketing, or propaganda. If it’s for yourself, I can’t think of a better purpose for it. Thanks for asking though!

Edition

Recently, one of my neighbors got me access to old growth trees I had seen from afar for 10 years and seeing them up close was even more beautiful than I imagined.

My dream version of Lilium pardalinum, they grow along the streams and river here

One of the earliest linocuts I made, big bulky line work.

The behemoth

do you have a favorite amphibian? :)

No, but the one that crosses my mind the most is Dicamptodon, I go for night walks with a headlamp here and they are so mythic looking when you see them at the entrance of a burrow.