Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Progress


With the image inked in, I've started carving the black lines into the "keyblock." This is somewhat more exciting than the re-inking process, but still, it gets tedious; I've a loooong way, it seems, until I start printing ink to paper.

Still, I like the carving process - it's a big part of what draws me to woodcuts in the first place. I have a bit of a sculpture background (hey, I did work for Wally Shoop, after all...), so it's satisfying carving into a blank piece of wood:




Especially with the added benefit of printing the image later!

Sunday, September 27, 2009

1st print of the season


I'm starting the printing season off with a multiple block print of my Dad, who passed away several years ago, fly fishing on one of our favorite stretches of river, what we referred to as "The Duck Hole".

In the photo above, I've laid out the image, and transferred it to a clear piece of maple. The next step is to carve out the black ink-line. It's tedious, but once done I'll have a master block, called a key block, that I'll be able to base all the rest of the color block off from.