Been hacking away at a lump of old plywood for a couple of days and took a first proof of it today. I used Daler Rowney block printing medium mixed with Daler Rowney lamp black Georgian oil paint and took the print using a Japanese baren onto Fabriano Accademica 120 gsm paper. I can’t get a dense black using a baren but it’s ok for a first proof. Now I can see where I need to do more hacking before I take it off to Swansea Print Workshop for a proper tryout on our old Columbian press.
scribblah 
wow. i suddenly want to carve a woodblock now
do it! do it! 😀
haha i have a list thats far too long of things i want to do. I’m not a full time artist so I must be very selective.
Just grab a lump of wood out of a skip and hack at it with knives when you’re angry with someone – it’ll get rid of your anger and you’ll get a lovely woodblock as well. Bargain. 🙂
🙂 well clearly i need to start look in skips
I love skips. All sorts of good stuff in skips. Oh dear, I’m becoming a mad bag lady lol
I love them too and charity shops but I’ve had to be strict with myself. There isnt space to keep blocks of wood around. Although I never sharpened by lino tools which was probably why i never enjoyed cutting up lino as much and it took so long. where do you get this blade sharpener from? maybe you should put some how to’s up.
Here’s a bloke using the slipstrop on YouTube – really good if you’re a total geek like me lol. I bought it in a local timber merchants.