Thread: woodcut printing??

Underfoot,I hope you yet some replys. I am interested also.

To me, it seems to be a slow, painful excerise, I hope I am wrong.

terry

Traditionally its done on the endgrain of blocks of fine grained timber, not too hard/brittle. I've seen blocks made from Tas myrtle, and even Tas blackwood. I'd reckon jelutong would be good, white beech would be OK, maybe a bit coarse.
I've done woodcuts on ply and masonite as well, obviously suits larger work.

Cheers

I have a book called Modern Home Crafts, published in the 1940s, which mentions applying flocking to the block after it is carved. Do they do this any more.. I'd never heard of it before, and when you see those Indian print blocks for sale they are always just bare wood. I guess it would carry more ink, and more repeatable. Anyway, just an odd thing. The whole book is odd. Even has a chapter on woodwork. And pottery. all kinds of quite complicated crafts. Can't imagine people just reading about somthing in one small chapter of a book and then going and doing it, and expecting it to work straight off.

Hi Tea Lady, love your name. For what its worth, I would think linoleum or potato would be a good lead into wood block carving at least they would give you the right feel towards printing technique.

opps, last post misdirected, sorry Underfoot, you said you had the basics so maybe disregard last post. Tea Lady, still love the name, thought you were starting out. I think I should get some sleep.

Originally Posted by springwater

opps, last post misdirected, sorry Underfoot, you said you had the basics so maybe disregard last post. Tea Lady, still love the name, thought you were starting out. I think I should get some sleep.

Starting out what? I'm a newbie woodworker. But I know lots of other useless stuff. Sleep? Who needs it. Actually, right now I could sleep for Australia, but I have to stay up to turn up the kiln at 11pm. Hey, Its past 11 o'clock. Night.

A bit of redemption (with the help of google).

Found these, might help:

Little bit here:
http://www.sharecom.ca/bewick/technique.html

This is a good one:
http://www.sharecom.ca/phillips/technique.html

and this:
http://woodblock.com/encyclopedia/outline.html

Originally Posted by tea lady

Starting out what? I'm a newbie woodworker. But I know lots of other useless stuff. Sleep? Who needs it. Actually, right now I could sleep for Australia, but I have to stay up to turn up the kiln at 11pm. Hey, Its past 11 o'clock. Night.

um, starting out wood block printing.

Night

They used to do that in school, actually my wife did more of it than I did, but they used a block of wood with a piece of linoleum on it.....does the same printing job, but easier to work.

Originally Posted by underfoot

Has anyone here done any woodcut (woodblock) printing??


First question.............endgrain?..... quartersawn?.....species?

... I used linoleum last century...

Traditional species: 1 pear (in Europe), 2 cherry (no.1 in Japan), 3 box, 4 olive, with the grain.

For letter printing, endgrain box, harder but less precise. I made only two signet blocks and used ash. Works, but not brilliant.

Would not have a clue about aussie timbers.

Gouges and fine burins only, knives not used anymore.

That's all I know about it...

this is great,

I post a question just before I go beddy bye
and when I wake up
all the little wood fairies have my answers ready

thanks everyone

I'm giving myself the day off to play with woodblock printing
(I found a box of printers inks at the recyclers yesterday, it must be an omen)
I'll post some pics of the end results this arvo. cheers

ok
I had a bit of a play, it was great fun,
kept it really simple to start ,
picked a line drawing out of my sketch book,
(may as well show the whole process)

- drew design on a bit of 1/4 sawn huon pine, about 160x100mm
- scribed around outline with a pfiel no.1 knife
- removed background with fish tail chisel
- played around with ink and water mix till I got the right consistancy

heres a few more pics,

Nice work underfoot! The huon would cut well. Are you rolling the ink, printing with a burnisher & not a press? What paper is it?
Printmaking is a bit of a trick really, the material you remove on woodcuts prints white (ie. the high spots left behind take the ink), but with intaglio (etching), the material removed prints black if inked up normally. This can be reversed if you roll an etching plate with ink though.

Keep them coming!