In 1892, Dow attempted his first Japanesque color woodcuts. The resulting works, modeled after the narrow verticals of Japanese pillar prints, are much smaller than their Japanese counterparts. Depicting the environs of the New England town where Dow lived, they successfully demonstrate his knowledge of Japanese compositional concepts, including bird's-eye viewpoints and high horizon lines. As an innovation, Dow inked his blocks differently each time he printed an impression, and he did not use a key block, preferring instead to allow the colors to define shapes and provide pattern effects.