Woodcuts

For my final woodcut project I created a block using a dremel tool of a slide of cells from my microbiology textbook. Using different bits for the tool, I was able to achieve either lines or the stipple effect. It's a small woodcut (carved area is about 9"x12") which was nice because my previous one was so large. Once all the prints dried I gave them each a unique hand-coloring with watercolor. This is an "edition" of six unique hand-colored prints.

Two-Plate Three-Color Print

This is the final print for the image I posted a sketch of awhile ago (here). I printed it using yellow and purple like in the sketch but didn't like the way it looked, so I switched the yellow ink to magenta because the purple ink is mixed with magenta so I thought they would flow better together. The print didn't come out exactly as I was hoping, to get them to look the way I wanted they had to be exact copies of each other and I wasn't as precise with my aquatint as I had hoped. I still like the way it came out and learned a lot from it--there's a pink plate with black a la poupee (selective wiping with multiple colors on the same plate) in the purple and a purple plate with a la poupee in the pink--I wish I had a chance to take a photo of my color separation but had to turn it in for my critique. The colors are a little brighter in the actual print than the photo as well. I'm looking forward to doing more multi-plate prints in the future.

We did quick small charcoal drawings for my last two figure drawing classes, here are a few of them.

Two-Stage Woodcut

I had a hard time photographing this print because it's so big (about 16"x30") printed with silver ink so this is from an odd angle--it's a little distorted. It's a woodcut printed in two stages. For the first stage, I printed the back of the block with black. After it dried I printed the next layer, which was the cutout face in silver on top of the black background. I didn't like the way the block looked but after printing I am really happy with how it came out. The printing process was inspired by Picasso, who would print the back of the block in black and then the carved block in white so it would look like a line drawing--I just chose not to use white ink.

I never posted the final print of my first woodcut--so here it is!

It was handprinted using a wooden knob as a burnisher and carved out of pine. It's pretty small, 12x12 inches.