Unit 12. Live Brief. Mother & Child. Woodcutting Wonders Workshop!

Woodcutting is another for of printing from a relief block. Similar to lino cutting, the image  is made by first drawing out a rough outline in pencil-on a block of MDF- which happens to be the most suitable for carving curves and lines out of. Once your outline is draw out, the  outlines are cut away using three curved wood carving tools.

Noting that wherever one carves away lines-these areas will be printed white in printing process. Also important to note that the prints will get progressively better as the on the first print the MDF absorbs nearly all of the ink- so a patchy and faded print will result. It is recommended that one produces around 8 prints-with each print getting progressively better than its predecessor.

As well as these two factors-and a slight ill favour to woodcut based prints-s that the ink cannot be washed off-so if one uses a single colour for the first set of prints the relief block cannot be cleaned of that first ink. This was something that I, only released at the end of the first 8 prints. Ah. a fickle mistake to make indeed.

Once your blocked has been designed, carved an inked up, you then place a blank sheet of the relevant sized cartridge paper on top-and roll a water based ink roller-a CLEAN DRY one-over the above side. And the pressure applied, will transfer the ink from the block underneath to the side of the sheet facing it! Huzzah! You now have a print in the colour you applied to the MDF relief block.

Despite a water based ink being used in this process-woodcut printing is still a messy matter so aprons are highly recommended-and gloves if multiple formats of ink are used in the same print. Although in terms of time, woodcut prints are a fairly simple, swift and speedy process-once the time consuming caring process is completed.

In terms of producing the actual prints it doesn't take too long to get from ink rolled block to finished print.

Unit 12 Live Brief. Mother & Child. Mono-Printing Magic Workshop!

The method of mono-printing that was used in the mono-printing session, was rolling out a layer of water based ink onto a marble slab, the sheet of paper was then placed lightly over the top and the image was drawn on the side of paper-facing upwards. Noting that any pressure applied on the drawing side would be attracted and printed on the inked side of the paper. In a way that iron fillings suspended in paraffin would be drawn to a polarized magnet. Once the image was drawn out I then proceeded to rub over the paper surface with a clean paint roller, then peeled the paper away to reveal the imprinted image on the back of my paper.

Despite a water based ink being used in this process-mono-printing- is still a messy matter so aprons are highly recommended-and gloves if multiple formats of ink are used in the same print. Although in terms of time, mono-printing a simple, swift and speedy process, with it  taking less than five minutes to produce a print. Easy sounding, no?