Category: Woodcut

Relief print from carved wood plate

New Year 2021

Happy New Year!

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.

Connection, Woodcut.

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

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:

Some previous New Year Cards are here:

New Year 2018

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 … Continue reading “New Year 2018”

New Year 2019

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 … Continue reading “New Year 2019”

New Year Card 2020

Happy New Year! Here is my New Year Card 2020:

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.

New Year 2019

Happy New Year!

I made a woodcut.

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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:

Orange block printed
Blue block printed on top

In the background you see the Albion press I used for printing. It is a wonderful cast-iron machine.

Albion press for relief printing
Albion press nameplate

As well as the greetings cards I tried an experiment with chine collé on Japanese paper.

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And this was an out-take that I liked:

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The inks made marvellous patterns on the glass when I was cleaning up:

Yellow and red ink, and cleaning fluid
Black and red ink, and water

Perhaps I could entitle that last one “Window into the unknown”?

Happy New Year 2019!

 

New Year 2018

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!

Tiara in the Garden

Here is a woodcut of my sister’s greyhound, Tiara.

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Tiara in the Garden

This is a reduction woodcut. That means I cut the woodblock, and made a number of prints in the yellow colour, then I cut it further, and printed the grey/brown colour.

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Printing the first colour

 

Prints from the first colour
First colour

Here is work in progress on the second colour.

 

Prints drying
Woodblock on the Albion Press
Prints drying

These are printed on the Albion press at East London Printmakers:

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Albion Press, at East London Printmakers

I mixed the colours.
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Here is the finished card:
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Gilded Bronze Gerfalcon

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Woodcut, after a statue seen in the British Museum “Sicily Culture and Conquest” exhibition, 24 April 2016. He stood about 12 inches high and dates from 1200AD or so.

This woodcut is done in Shminke Prussian blue AquaLino relief ink, on the marvellous Albion press at East London Printmakers. Fabriano Unica Cream paper from Great Art. Woodcut block 16cm by 11cm from Intaglio Printmaker.

Rugby Players

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Woodcut is such a great medium. It’s satisfying to cut the wood with the sharp tools. The character of woodcut allows approximation, and fast working. There’s lots that’s not quite right about this image, but I am reluctant to mess around with the blocks. I feel that the woodcut has its own language and I let it be.

Two blocks, postcard size  about 6inches by 4inches, printed with Schminke Aqua Liniprint ink using the ancient Albion Press at East London Printmakers.

After an original photograph in the Guardian newspaper 19 December 2015, by David Davies, under the headline:
“Carter’s precision thwarts Saints’ revenge bid”.

Northampton 9
Racing 92        9

The caption to the photograph reads:
“Racing’s Dan Carter attempts to flick a pass out of the back of his hand before Northampton’s Mike Hayward can drag the New Zealander to the ground”

Woodcut: “Contact”

This is a woodcut, inspired by a huge stone sculpture in the Berlin Tiergarten.

The sculpture was made in limestone  in 1961 by Pierre Szekely (1923-2001), a Hungarian sculptor. It stands about 7 ft tall and has depth, about a foot thick. Wikipedia gives the name of the sculpture as “Contact”. I don’t know if it is still there. I saw in in 2012, in the snow, and it looked like an amulet, or sacred object. The shape is both anthropomorphic, and other-worldly. I like the fact that it has feet. I find the shape is satisfying. If I had an amulet, it would be shaped like that.

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Woodcut with prussian blue Schminke Aqua Linoprinting ink. Size of woodcut, 2 inches by 3 inches, approx. Done yesterday at East London Printmakers.