Patent ID: 8540339

Claim:
An ink jet printing apparatus for printing an image by reciprocal movement of a carriage, the carriage being capable of mounting an ink tank to supply pigment ink to an ink ejection portion, the ink jet printing apparatus comprising: a stirring unit configured to execute a stir operation for stirring the pigment ink in the ink tank, the stir operation being executed by reciprocal movement of the carriage during a non-printing operation; a cap configured to cap the ink ejection portion and being capable of receiving the pigment ink ejected from the ink ejection portion; a preliminary ejection unit configured to execute a preliminary ejection operation for ejecting the pigment ink from the ink ejection portion to the cap; a pump configured to discharge the pigment ink in the cap; a discharge unit configured to execute a discharge operation for discharging, without capping the ink ejection portion, the pigment ink previously ejected into the cap by the preliminary ejection operation, the discharge operation being executed by operating the pump; an obtaining unit configured to obtain information about an elapsed time after a last printing operation of printing an image on a preceding print medium; and a control unit configured to control the stirring unit and the discharge unit so that, in a case the elapsed time is more than a predetermined time without receiving a print signal for printing an image on a following print medium, at least a part of the discharge operation and at least a part of the reciprocal movement for the stir operation are executed concurrently.