Getting Ready To Carve

I carried on preparing a sheet of MDF for my next woodcut. After I’d reversed my original drawing and traced it onto the wood, I painted in the different colours that I need to cut away. It’s a reduction print, often called the “suicide” method by printmakers as the process results in the complete destruction of the block.

Left to right: Tracing the outline onto the MDF sheet; blocking in the white areas with acrylic paint; and the mid-tone areas with dilute walnut ink. This is the basic design, I’ll put a lot more detail into the block as I’m carving it.