Making the First Cut

I inherited two sets of woodcutting tools from my father and used them in college. I remember as a kid using these very same tools on small linoleum-block print projects: Christmas and birthday cards, wrapping paper, kite decorations. I also remember the curved blade scoop tool and the nasty hole it put at the base of my right palm because I had yet to learn to "keep your other hand out of the way of the blade". For this cut, I will be using primarily two tools: the angled knife and the very small "v" gouge on the left.



I took me a little while to get back into the swing of things and get into a regular rhythm with the tools. They feel cumbersome at times, but I keep them sharp with an Arkansas stone, honing every morning before cutting, which helps minimize slips and miscuts. On the photo below you can see where I have begun cutting in the lower left corner. What you cannot see is the thin rubber no-slip kitchen matting that I have under the block. It provides just enough resistance to keep it from slipping under the pressure of the knife, yet allows for the block to be swiveled so that I can attack the cuts at the best angle.

Because some of the areas I will be cutting are very tight, I also employ an X-acto knife, but I find that blade is too flexible to withstand the pressure of cutting larger areas of the block and I am mortified that I will snap the blade and have a piece go flying. Here is an actual size photo of the woodcut, showing the level of detail. I cut away the white portions of the paper, leaving the black lines. As you can imagine, working in such tight places is quite time-consuming.




One other thing: what's up with those funky horizontal white lines? Well, the day that I was printing my enlarged drawing on the office laser printer, the fuser unit reached the end of its life. It's fairly easy to negotiate around them, and I simply re-ink the lines where needed.

Preparing the Block

Several years ago I was rummaging around the home improvement center and came across some birch plywood for use on a project. As I sorted through the sheets it occurred to me that the surface would be perfectly fine for woodblock printing. On a lark, I bought an extra 2' x 4' sheet and stowed it away. Years later, this same piece of wood has resurfaced as the base for my new wood block print.

I ruled out the print area in pencil, and painted on a mixture of rubber cement, thinned to approximately 50-50 consistency with thinner, on both the block and the sections of the master drawing. The enlarged, flipped drawing was pasted to the printing block, and the thinned rubber cement would keep the drawing in place, yet allow me to peel cut sections away come printing time.

I had originally planned to print out the drawing on thin vellum, which would be easier to cut through to the block. However, the vellum sheets jammed the office laser printer so I had to resort to plain old bond. As I have come to find, the added thickness of the paper isn't really problematic, it allows me to peel sections away to review my work and repaste to continue. Here is the final drawing pasted to the printing block:

Drawing the Print

One of the things that I always intended to do when I got back into printmaking, specifically woodcut, was to try to make prints that had a degree of fluidity. For this print, I deliberately made an impromptu, free sketch from an image I was developing as a larger pastel drawing.


This sketch was roughly 8 1/2" x 11", done in gel-tipped pen, and had the looseness I was after. However, I would need to enlarge the drawing so that the individual strokes were thick enough to have the impact I desired at the final print size: 20" x 25".


I scanned the original drawing, scaled it to the final size, and cleaned up unwanted marks. Since the printmaking process will reverse an image that has been transferred to block and then printed, I flipped the image so that it would be right-reading when the final print was pulled. I laser printed the image in four tiled sections, carefully butted them togther so that the drawn lines matched up, and I was ready to mount the print to the wood block.

Getting Back to Print

At the close of 2007, as I looked back on the year, I couldn't believe thirty years had passed since my last foray into printmaking, during college. Over these years, I had kept my hand in drawing, visited museums regularly, and continued to look at prints, always admiring the work of others. But one of my New Year's Resolutions for 2008 was to get my hands dirty and make prints of my own.

And so, on December 30, I chose a sketch that I thought would made a good beginning print. Since I didn't have a full printmaking studio at my disposal, I knew I would have to make the print at home. In my home studio, I decided on a woodcut: manageable materials, no chemicals, just the simple transfer of idea and drawing to block. How I approach the print process will come in later posts.