And for those interested in technique: the blue background of this card is made by printing. The printing “plate” was torn cardboard, stuck onto cardboard. Here’s an example. Each “plate” made about a dozen cards, before it became too deteriorated to work properly.
The boat and the star are cut from wrapping paper.
This is a card, sent by post to people, snail mail, in an envelope with a postage stamp. Why? Because it seems to me that material connection matters. I make real objects in the real world, and spend real time making material things. Even if only out of paper and cardboard. Even in 2026……
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Thank you for reading my posts and looking at my pictures. I appreciate your encouragement and comments.
Here is my New Year Card for 2024.
New Year 2024: “Ascent” woodcut and collage – 5″ x 7″
I intended the image to be one of hope: of collaboration and of working together towards a higher goal.
The main image is a woodcut on plywood. Here is work in progress:
The woodcut image is inspired by a sculpture on the wall of a building in Hoxton. The building is called “Development House” 56-64 Leonard Street. I can’t find any attribution for the sculpture and would be interested to know who the artist is, if anyone can tell me.
Technical information: The woodcut is on plywood, bought from “Great Art”on the Kingsland Road, not far from this sculpture. The ink is Schminke relief ink, applied with a roller. I printed the image by hand at my desk, using a roller and pressing the paper down with the convex side of a spoon. The paper is lightweight Thai Mulberry (45gsm) in various shades: sea grey, peppermint and natural, bought online from the “Perfect Paper Company”. The round “planets” are offcuts of marbled paper from the Wyvern Press. I cut the stars out of old sparkly wrapping paper, using a star cutter. The “Happy New Year” text is cut from a pencil eraser. Other text is from an old-fashioned printing outfit.
I make New Year cards most years to send to friends and family. In recent years they have been prints: woodcuts or linocuts. This year it was a collage. My card this year is made of marbled paper and a kinetic band of people. The people are printed from carved rubber stamps. The concept was to show “through it all together”: people going under and over and through.
New Year Card 2023
Here is a short video to show how the centre band moves:
Here are the rubber stamps which made the people and the dogs. I cut them from a large pencil eraser.
Rubber stamps made from pencil eraser. They are each about 1cm high.
Here are some snaps of work in progress.
The marbled paper is from a pack of offcuts from the Wyvern Bindery. There are several different designs. The white card is watercolour paper from Jackson Art, cut down, with the offcuts used to make the moving band of people. I made about 45.
Happy New Year! Here is my New Year Card for 2022.
“Bridges” – woodcut + watercolour, collage and printing
May 2022 be kind to us all.
In London there are many beautiful bridges.
Regents CanalTower bridgeWestminster Bridge
One early morning I saw them all ranged out.
London Bridges at dawn, from the South Bank, looking West
I thought of them as images of hope: so many connections, so many different ways to get across, and that glow of the sunrise on the buildings beyond!.
Westminster Bridge was my model. It took many efforts to get the design to work as a woodcut.
Design attempts
It needed a bit of glow, to echo what I had seen in the sunrise. So I used iridescent watercolour, put on before the paper was printed.
Daniel Smith iridescent watercolourWatercolour on paperPaper is “Hatakami” from Nepal via the Vintage Paper CompanyIridescent watercolour on Nepali paper
Here is the wood block:
“Bridge” woodblock 10cm x 15cm
I did the printing at East London Printmakers, on a cast-iron press.
The press at East London Printmakers
Then back at my desk I assembled the cards and sent them off.
"Composed on Westminster Bridge September 3, 1802 " by William WordsworthEarth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
My New Year card for 2021 shows a telephone kiosk.
New Year, 2021, “Connection”, woodcut 6″ x4″, on Japanese Kozo paper
I am of a generation for whom the telephone kiosk was, at one time in my life, an important feature of communications. You looked for them. You found them. They were either working or not. The inside smelt of old metal, coinage, leaves and urine. The phone was heavy and cold. The thick cord was twisted. You had to have the right coins. Sometimes coins jammed in the slot, or went straight through the mechanism without registering. So if you were experienced, and organised, you had a whole series of coins of different denominations ready to put in, in case the first one didn’t work. If your call was important, or if you needed to write something down, it was helpful to have a friend with you in the telephone kiosk, standing by with the coins, poised to enter them rapidly as the pips went. There was a risk-based calculation about what denomination of coin to enter, and in what order. You might enter small change first, while you worked out if the person you wanted was in, then drop in the big money for the important conversation, so that the pips did not cut you off at a critical point. You might enter a variety of change at the beginning in the hope that some of it would be returned if the call was shorter than you expected. But your money was not always returned.
Above all, a telephone kiosk represented hope: the hope of connection. That’s my hope for 2021.
Also in the woodcut I put some people. These might be the three wise men, looking for hope and salvation in a humble building.
I based my woodcut on phone boxes I have encountered recently. It is a K2 phone box, like the one at Lower Marsh, Waterloo. You can tell, because it has six rows of windows.
Lower Marsh, Waterloo
Lera Voe, Shetland
Royal Courts of Justice
Aldermanbury
Walberswick
Here is work in progress:
Sketch
Wood carving
Inking
Watercolour gold
Relief ink
Prints drying
Inking
The background gold colour is, amazingly, watercolour: Daniel Smith Iridescent Gold. The red is Schmincke relief printing ink. The paper came, via friends, from “Paper Nao” in Tokyo. It is kozo paper, I think K-148, and brilliant for hand-printing. It doesn’t crinkle, it takes the colour well, and it’s really strong so it doesn’t tear when you pull it off the plate.
I like phone boxes. They appear in various of my drawings, see for example, these posts:
Here are my greetings for the New Year, sent as cards. They are woodcuts, two plates. The orange/red colour was printed first. The black colour is the Schminke “Aquadruck” black relief ink diluted with extender kindly lent to me by Connie at East London Printmakers. Her extender was from the Caligo range, and was slightly…
Happy New Year! I made a woodcut. This is a greetings card, about 7″x5″. It is from two woodblocks, one orange and one blue. Here is work in progress at East London Printmakers: In the background you see the Albion press I used for printing. It is a wonderful cast-iron machine. As well as the…
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It’s a two-plate woodcut. I call the design “VICISSITUDES” because it shows the ups and downs of the year. The star and the sunrise are cut from a magazine, Vogue or the FT “How to Spend It” supplement, both of which contain high quality paper which cuts cleanly.
The background that looks a dull beige on the computer screen is gold paint. It glistens. It is “Schmincke Aqua Linoprint 35ml Metallics” Gold relief ink from Intaglio Printmaker. It was fun to use and very effective. The black ink is “Schmincke Aqua Linoprint Ivory Black 19 735” 120ml also from Intaglio Printmaker. The paper is Fabriano Unica from Great Art. I did this printing on the Albion Press at East London Printmakers.
Plate number 1 (Gold ink)
Plate number 2 (Black ink)
Plywood plates used to make the design “Vicissitudes” for New Year 2020.
Here is one of the cards ready for posting. I tried to get the light on it so you could see the gold ink.
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Here are my greetings for the New Year, sent as cards.
They are woodcuts, two plates. The orange/red colour was printed first. The black colour is the Schminke “Aquadruck” black relief ink diluted with extender kindly lent to me by Connie at East London Printmakers. Her extender was from the Caligo range, and was slightly whitish. It seemed to work better than the Schminke version.
The gold star is punched out of some golden wrapping paper I received last year.
The paper is Fabriano Unica, cut to size on the marvellous electrical guillotine.
Happy New Year!
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Jane Sketching 