Detail of inked woodblock After an intensely busy period at work, I finally had a free weekend to properly begin printing with the woodblocks. Up until now, much of the process had involved designing, carving and planning, but this felt like the moment where the prints themselves might finally begin to emerge. Before printing, I spent quite a long time studying colour. Mixing colour for Japanese-style woodblock printing is something of an art in itself. I looked carefully at

I collected the twelve ōban woodblocks on a lunch break in Bermondsey, greeted by the warm smell of freshly cut wood. Carrying them back through the heat, arms aching, the reality of the project set in. Paper, pigments, water, nori—nothing was as simple as it seemed. Choosing materials was one thing; learning how to use them was another. Already, I felt the quiet uncertainty that comes with beginning something truly new.

Edward Luper, Cherry Blossoms at Regents Park, 2026 The difficulty was not in making the drawing, but in learning how to limit it. In earlier work, I had not needed to think in such terms. In my series of views of the tower, colour was something that could be extended almost indefinitely. A pane of glass might contain several shades within it, each slightly different, shifting with light. There was no particular need to reduce or simplify. The image could absorb variation wit

This painting began with pirates and ended in gold. It brings together childhood memories of LEGO ships, the story of William Adams, and my love of Japanese Nanban screens. Inspired by Bosch and Bruegel, and painted with traditional Japanese pigments and gold leaf, it is a floating theatre of folly, drifting between East and West.

As an artist and lover of art history, I've always been fascinated by the unexpected connections between different cultures and artistic...

"Some will say they do not wish to dream their lives away. As if life itself were not a dream, a very real dream from which there is no...

Foujita (1886-1968) is an artist I have come to appreciate more and more over time; not just his depiction of cats and nudes, but also...

In my studies of the Rinpa school in Japan and their techniques for my own paintings, I suddenly realised something that I didn't think...

I recently painted two cats on gold leaf with mineral pigment. In composition I wanted them to mirror each other like the Gods of Wind...

Junichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965) once wrote an aesthetic treatise titled 'In Praise of Shadows'. The essay discusses traditional Japanese...

A major part of traditional Japanese and Chinese painting is the use of mineral pigments. Nowadays, colours and paint can be made...

Sizing paper in the context I’m going to discuss isn’t about measuring the size, but rather applying a ‘sizing’ solution (usually some...