13/12/2016 - PRINT - WOODCUT

Having now written my specific statement of intent for my practice I thought it would be best to move on from the chinese proverbs and towards a topic which was more on theme with my intentions for the rest of the unit. As this was mainly an induction workshop I wanted to keep my concept simple so chose to focus it on the diminishing iceflows which are pushing polar bears to the edge of survival.

I looked at some of the example pieces and one of the things I first noticed was that becase the entire block starts off as a positive print, this filled in effect is often used by artists to create the borders and backgrounds. This means many traditional woodcuts also feature elaborate scenery and frames, or have a tendency to use this space to immediately cover large areas of the paper in a background pattern, whereas in the creation of other prints these areas might be left white.

I wanted to mimic this in my own prints, so used the large filled areas to act as the shadowed sections and only picked the brightest sections out as picked out in the bright sunlight. I used the idea of bordering around the bottom edge with the rippled of the water to give my piece a framed finish.

I also tried to incorporate a variety of different shapes and marks to see how they would turn out in my finished prints. I really like how taking tiny slices from the surface created a very textural fur effect, and think this could be developed further in creating highly details images of animals. Contrasting the finer marks of the iceberg and polar bear against the more minimalist shapes of the sun and reflections on the water also produced an interesting mix of styles.

Another tip I picked up during the cutting of my woodcut was just how much staining the surface beforehand helps with making sense of what the final image will be. This is something I need to remember if I revisit wood cutting.

Before printing with my plate, I took a frottage rubbing as a little preview for what my print could look like, however it didn't pick up very many of the smaller marks and details and much of the effect was lost.

The first of my prints with ink was actually the most succesful. I think this is because I was told I would need to put on a lot more ink initially to account for the first layer soaking in, which caused me to overestimate the amount needed and actually produced an almost perfect print straight away. With only small defects on the left and right corner where my fingers initially rested, seeing my print emerge from the press was a very gratifying experience.

 

 
One thing I learnt in the first few moments of using oil based inks was the fact if things got very messy very quickly, and a few of my prints suffered finger marks which, in a gallery would be unacceptable. Because of this, working neatly and purposefully is a must, something I picked up in my screenprinting workshop as well.

I then created a gradient roller fading from the darker blue into a paler ocean blue. I really liked this effect as it created a transition from one element of the blue backdrop to the other and gave more definition to my peice.

 I tried hand pressing one print with this colour scheme (left) to see the difference in effect created. I liked the distressed effect created by using the manual hand press, however I think it would need to be used with a very dark ink colour as if not it is very hard to visually tell the difference between this texture and the areas carved into the wood.