Repairing the baren

Today was Ueba sensei's last day.



So, we had a lesson in repairing the baren, which is the piece of equipment used to press the ink into the paper. The baren cover is made from bamboo.

First, warm water is added to a bucket and then the bamboo skin is soaked for one minute. This is to loosen the fibres and stop it breaking when it is stretched over the baren.

The skin is then stretched with the back of a spoon and then the baren is placed on the bamboo.

Then, each side of the skin is twisted round and onto the top of the baren.

The skin is then held in place with a piece of string.

The two long end bits you can see here are then snipped off. I shall come back to this in a minute.

Then we were showed some different types of woodblock prints by Ueba sensei.

I thought I would take one final picture of the landscape outside of the studio. The mist was swirling round the hills and looked particularly wonderful.

Later on in the day, Ueba sensei taught us how to make our own brushes for carrying the ink and nori [rice paste]. When one repairs a baren, the two end bits that are left from twisting the skin onto the baren can be made into small brushes. First, the bamboo pieces are left with one end dipped in water for a week. Then, these ends are hit with a hammer. The whole thing is threaded onto a cut-down chopstick and tied tightly with string. This saves a lot of money on small brushes and shows that nothing is wasted.