Wednesday, May 27, 2020

woodblock attempts... day ?

1 The original idea sketch...
2 Sketched onto a piece of trace...
What started out as a project during a week off at the end of March got put on hold  but I have finally found the time (and materials) to further work on the woodblock print attempt during this week off. The first 6 images are from March, the last two from yesterday.

I was not happy with the paper (too small and too smooth) and the inconsistency of the ink in my previous printing, but some experimenting (and googling) using a block I carved on similar wood 15 years ago revealed quite dramatically that dampening the paper works quite nicely, and I feel like a whole new world has opened up. The resulting prints from yesterday are still not perfect but a great improvement to the previous version.

3 Working out black and white. and texture...
I have now washed the block to clear off some caked ink, as I am still not happy with the amount of detail that has been lost. I will probably carve some modifications and run a few more prints soon...


4 Carving...
5 and test printing along the way...
6 An early version at the end of March... too blotchy!
7 A test print using an old block and dampened paper (left).



8 Printing on proper Stonehenge paper... still not perfect but much better.