I had a very busy Sunday pulling some woodcut prints down at Swansea Print Workshop. I used the beautiful old Columbian press, an antique dating from the 1850s, when Queen Victoria was on the British throne. How many prints have been pulled off this press? How many hands have pulled the lever? It’s not onlyContinue reading “Pulling The Columbian”
Tag Archives: woodcuts
Paper Geekery
I spent a happy hour fondling beautiful papers and sniffing oil pigments and pulling on my favourite antique printing press. I was doing some trials on four lovely Japanese papers. This is an Atsukushi White, just 39 gsm. Above is the back of the paper on the woodcut block just after I’d put it throughContinue reading “Paper Geekery”
Watching The Match
The rugby World Cup has been thrilling so far and after Saturday’s epic woodcut session at Swansea Print Workshop, a few of us decamped to local hostelry, The Brunswick, to watch the match between Wales and Australia. It was a tough game, we lost but we’re still going through to the next round. Exciting stuff.Continue reading “Watching The Match”
A Humongous Proof
Today was day 2 of a Masterclass with woodcut artist John Abell at Swansea Print Workshop and I carried on cutting the humongous piece of MDF I started yesterday. I used compressed charcoal to darken the surface while I cut with my Flexcut tools. Finally, I reached the point where I wanted to get anContinue reading “A Humongous Proof”
Humongous!
I am doing a two-day masterclass with epic printmaker, John Abell, at Swansea Print Workshop. John specialises in humongously large woodcuts, click here to see some of his awesome work. I’ve done some small woodcuts before, on plywood, but didn’t really get on with the method. Today, I was presented with a table-sized lump ofContinue reading “Humongous!”
Day 2 of a gurt big woodcut
A daily blog showing the progress of a huge woodcut by Welsh printmaker, John Abell – stunning! Day 2 of a gurt big woodcut.
Strop!!!
I’m carrying on with woodcuts for a while, hacking away at lumps of plywood all day at the studio. It’s important to keep my cutting tools sharp; if I keep hacking when they get blunt, it hurts my wrist. I use a leather slipstrop and a bar of waxy abrasive to keep them sharp.Continue reading “Strop!!!”
First Proof
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’tContinue reading “First Proof”
I Got More Wood…
I’ve been hacking away at my lump of old plywood today. I darkened the outline drawing I did yesterday with a greasy charcoaly thing from Daler Rowney – I should be more technical I know, but I lost the box it came in – and then I hacked the white bits out of it.Continue reading “I Got More Wood…”
I’ve Got Wood…
…..and I know how to use it :). I’ve got a stack of plywood offcuts hanging around the studio so I thought I’d do some woodcuts from my sketches. I’ve decided to work on male nudes for the foreseeable future and I’ve just completed a series of three very large manier noir drawings, including oneContinue reading “I’ve Got Wood…”
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