More Woodblock

Woodblock 13 Feb 05

I've now settled on a way of printing from woodblocks which suits me. Here is a summary:-

I use birch plywood. This allows me to do large prints and its not expensive. Sometimes I paint it with primer/undercoat and sand it down to a very smooth finish. This produces a good print. Sometimes I paint it and leave the brush strokes which come out in the print. Other times I leave the bare wood. This is nice when I want to see the grain of the wood. This disadvantage of this is that once I've used one colour on it I'm stuck because the ink gets into the grain andcomes through any subsequent colours. This can look quite nice in its self.
I use Akua intaglio inks. I find this easier to roll out than Akuacolour. The colour range is a bit limited but that may change in the future.
I use medium quality japanese paper. The smoothest I can find. I still find japanese paper the best for printing on. It gives a better print when damp but it's harder to handle and register so mainly I use it dry.
I don't use a press. I use an old, cheap lino roller on the back of the paper.

Click on a picture to see a large version of it.

Registration

Here is my registration board with a block in place. It allows a 3cm border around the print area and it's pretty accurate.

Registration

Here is the same view with a sheet of paper in place and my roller on top.

Pears

This is a rerun of one I did before when I was trying out japanese style printing. If you look carefully you can see the woodgrain in the pears.

Pears

This is the same work but with a couple of additional blocks.

Painter

Here is a small woodblock done on untreated wood. Although it's a simple work there are 4 blocks where I've been trying to build up the textures and colours.

Wide Eyed

This is a daft picture but people seemed to like it so I kept it. I was actually experimenting with colour. The Akua colours right out of the tub tend to look a bit garish so I was trying to see how I could get a bright look but without looking too vivid. Colour is not one of my strong points. This one looks better in real life because you can see all the brush strokes of the primer with the underlaying colours showing through. This was all done on primed wood

Self Portrait

This is another experimental picture. One problem I have with multicolour woodblock is that normally you have to plan it all out carefully beforehand. I think this tends to show in the final print. This one was sketched out with charcoal on the first block and then developed block by block as I went along.

Abstract

I roll out the colour onto a sheet of glass and this picture came about as I was doing other work. I suddenly noticed this image on the glass which had come about quite accidentally and I decided to reproduce it on paper. It took a bit of time. This is not my normal kind of work but actually I'm pretty pleased with it and I quite like the idea of doing a big work in a similar way.

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