The Process Explained

These are woodcut prints that are hand painted with watercolors after they have been printed. Technically, they are Multi-Media artworks, but that is kind of a vague, all-encompassing categorization, so I call them woodcuts to call attention to that part of the process, because there are not very many people working in that medium.

Woodcut Printmaking is the oldest form of printmaking known to humankind. Different methods were developed in Europe and in Asia, but they all involved cutting away the areas that were not to print. This is why woodcut printmaking is know as a subtractive process. They all also involved spreading the ink or other pigment on the remaining surface area, where it would be transfered to a piece of paper throught the use of pressure exerted onto the back of the paper.

In Japan, the "Golden Age" of woodcut printmaking happened in the 19th century. An example you are probably already familiar with would be Katsushika Hokusai's "Great Wave off Kanagawa".

In Europe, Albrect Durer made some very fine black and white woodcuts in the Northern Renaissance.
A couple of centuries later, Fritz Bleyl and the other artists of the group who called themselves "Die Brüke" came up with a much looser, more expressive way of working with the same media.

THE TECHNIQUE I USE for the works on this website is really a combination of Woodcut Printing and Watercolor painting.
Here's how it's done:

First of all, I make a design on a piece of paper. Then I take a peice of wood that I have prepared by sanding it and oiling it with linseed oil, and, using tracing paper, I transfer the design onto that peice of wood.

Then I am ready to carve the design. Every part of the block that I carve away will make what artists call "negative space" and every part that I leave alone will print positive (black).
The principle by which the print is made is the same as with a common rubber stamp: the areas of higher relief do the printing, while the lower areas are completely ignored.

When you print a woodcut print, it comes out backwards, like a mirror image. That's where the tracing paper comes in handy. After I trace the original design, I flip the tracing paper over and transfer it onto the woodblock with carbon paper. By turning it over, I am drawing the design backwards on the block, so that, having been reversed twice, it will print forwards in the final print

AFTER THE CARVING PROCESS IS FINISHED, the printing process begins.
The woodblock is secured face up, on a workbench and rolled with just the right amount of ink. Then the paper is carefully lowered onto the block. Pressure is applied to the back of the paper. This transfers the ink from the raised surfaces onto the paper

I use an oil based printing ink, which takes a couple weeks to dry, but once it dries, it will not run when it gets wet.
In my sunset silhouettes, I only print the black silhouette.

AFTER THE PRINTING PROCESS IS THROUGH, I add the colors with many thin wet-in-wet watercolor washes.The watercolors will puddle up up on top of the largest black areas, like the trees, so I have to take a wrung-out brush and squeegee this up each time I do a wash.
Many of these designs have been traced from photographs I have taken, some are traced from my sketches, and some are a combination of the two.

Links to other relief printmaking artists.

Scott's Linocut Gallery

Supplies/Info sites

John Rindlaub Gallery

The Process Explained