swisters

A recent print
I'm back to my old tricks — a woodcut print of Harbour Cone. The view is from Allans Beach Road near the Sheppard Road turnoff. The Otago Peninsula still feels like home to me and I come back to this landmark time and time again.



This is a small print using nine colours. I've used three blocks combined with reduction printing and monoprinting.




Woodcut
Woodcut — formally known as xylography — is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges. The areas to show 'white' are cut away with a knife or chisel, leaving the characters or image to show in 'black' at the original surface level. The block is cut along the grain of the wood (unlike wood engraving where the block is cut in the end-grain). The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller (brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas.



Monoprint
Monoprinting is a form of printmaking that has images or lines that cannot exactly be reproduced. There are many techniques of monoprinting, including collage, hand-painted additions, and a form of tracing by which thick ink is laid down on a table, paper is placed on top and is then drawn on, transferring the ink onto the paper. Monoprints can also be made by altering the type, color, and pressure of the ink used to create different prints. Examples of standard printmaking techniques which can be used to make monoprints include lithography, woodcut, and etching.

(From Wikipedia)