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There are passions you just get struck with. Once they get hold of you, they never let go. With me it was woodcut. I never really had any chance to escape it. At first I thought I could keep it down by doing a bit of linocut. But I reckon it just made it worse.

 

Like letter press woodcut  is one of the relief printing techniques. In contrary to intaglio, where ink is rubbed into the engraved parts of the printing plate, in wood and linocut ink lies on the higher parts of the block. All parts that are supposed not to print have to be cut away, thus leaving the block look like a landscape relief, with slopes, summits and valleys – the summits being the parts that print the picture.

Dating back to the times of Johannes Gutenberg woodcut and metal type have been brave companions. They both can be printed in the same type of printing press. .

Apart from prints with one colour only multicolour prints can be made. Each colour wants its own plate. Thus a 5 colour print needs 5 plates or blocks. The artist can cut 5 blocks that are printed one after the other. Alternatively the artist can have one block of wood or lino that is cut successively each stadium fitting to print one single colour. Thus the block is cut to print the first colour and after all required copies have been printed, the same block is cut to print the second colour and so forth. Once the block has been cut for the 5th colour the original block doesn’t exist anymore, it is “lost”.

Each piece of wood is an individual, none is like any other. A tree meets with damages during its lifetime, knots and knotholes or cracks inside the trunk result in irregular growth that shows in a plate or block.

The picture on the left shows a print from a block where on the right end the bark has remained on. Apart from all that it is the veining that gives wood what linoleum never will have. The veining of the block of oak makes the light shine lively on the ladie’s hair (picture on the right). Wood takes its characteristics from its inhomogeneity and this makes wood so dramatically different from the totally homogeneous linoleum which can also be used for relief printing.
 

 

 

 

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