The Roses Part 2 - From Drawing to Woodcut

I left my drawing for a few days while I thought about the idea of creating a woodcut and reading up on the subject.  I found that the hints at tips in  The Printmaking Handbook by Louise Woods were useful, and I was surprised to read that I might be able to use some cheap plywood to begin with, as I had suspected I would need to head down to  Intaglio to invest in some more expensive wood that would be suitable for woodcut.  It said in the book that plywood from a wood merchant or DIY store would be relatively easy to cut and ideal for a beginner, as there is no worry about wasting high quality materials and money if you make a mistake. I figured as this was my first woodcut this would be the way to go, and so I headed to Lawsons and managed to find myself a lovely offcut that looked ideal for cutting into smaller rectangles for my first series of woodcut prints.

The plywood I had found at Lawsons was made up of 3 plies and was 5mm thick. It was just over a metre long and 40cm wide, for only £3.60! I was very happy, until some friends of mine said the next day it would not work for woodcut - that it would splinter and split as I attempted to cut through it. I sighed to myself but figured I would have very little to lose if I were to give it a go anyway.  I sawed a piece off the offcut that measured around 20cm x 40cm.

I invested in a couple of Pfeil tools from Jackson's Art Supplies (http://www.jacksonsart.com/search.php?input_search=pfeil&stock=0&x=0&y=0 ) and was SO relieved to find that they cut through the wood like a dream.  Having done quite a bit of linoprinting in my time I knew not to expect anything as effortless as cutting through some softcut lino, but I was delighted to see that carving through this wood was not much different, and I loved working with wood as a material...it is something I have always wanted to do.  I began by cutting out random lines and then making them look like branches, and then when I realised that it would be possible to, I began to use my drawing of the roses as a reference for my first ever woodcut.

I figured I should not invest too much time into making it precise, as this was my first time, I just wanted to have a play around, so I worked by having the sketchbook open on the roses drawing and used a HB pencil to replicate the forms of the composition, cutting as I went the areas I wanted to have white.  It take some time to work out how much pressure to apply, what angle to cut at, and how to avoid slipping and cutting more than you would like to, and I imagine you have to re-figure this out each time you set to work with a new piece of wood. I found it surprisingly easy to cut against the grain of the wood (as the book said this would be difficult) and also to make wavy lines with my cutter.  The pressure required was relatively high for a long working time, so I did find my hand ached a little at the end of the session.

This is what my woodcut looked like at the end of the first session - it was taking a little longer than I had envisaged, but I was quite excited by how it was looking.  I decided to use some hatching to describe areas of mid tone.  

Tone is something that was making me think - how was I going to tackle it? Having areas of hatching, then large areas completely cut out (the bits that appear white in the wood) and then areas left uncut meant I basically had 3 tonal values throughout the woodcut - a little less than I might have in a drawing or a painting.  However I think I may try varying tone further in my print by brushing the ink on, and mixing different colours with different tonal values, so that the print itself undulates in tone and colour, and my print will end up being half way between a conventional woodcut print and a painting.

The other thought I had was to apply gouache or watercolour washes to the sheet of paper I am going to print on, so that the print is laid on to blocks of colour, which might also work quite nicely with this composition.

I found that by the time I had completed cutting across the whole bit of wood I had run out of space to fit the whole composition of the drawing on to the piece but that did not bother me too much.  I really liked the woodcut as an object - it reminded me of old book illustrations or of the carvings you might see in the back of a pew in a church. I'm a little bit worried that the ink I use to print with will stain the wood, but at least I have some photos of it looking all pretty and clean!

The Roses - The beginning of a project

Back on the 19th June, it was a right sunny day so I decided to go and draw in the local park.  At first I was finding selecting subject matter really difficult, I did really have much of an idea of what I wanted to draw and why I was drawing - was it just for the enjoyment of it, was it so I could make inkjet prints to sell, was it to make a painting from, or a print?  I decided that it didn't really matter, I am in the enviable position of being able to stroll along to a beautiful local park in the rare English summer sunshine and draw, so I should enjoy it.

I came across a really gorgeous circular walled rose garden in the park, so I decided to park my posterior and set to work.  I started on some roses and found that they danced a little too vigorously in the wind, so I gave up on those and decided this little arrangement as photographed above, would be my chosen subject.

Generally I love to paint landscape, but today I wanted to do something a little different; in my mind I thought I would treat the subject of the roses as a kind of landscape in itself - I didn't want to make a botanical study, but something more akin to what I usually do in my work - which is to pull out shapes identified within a subject, and navigate around what I see before me with my pencil, in my sketchbook.  In order to not end up with a botanical study I realised very quickly that I would not want to draw the roses as isolated elements on a white sheet of paper, and actually, I was really interested in how I could depict the very complex relationships between all the different twigs and branches surrounding the flowers, and the way the light fell on them, etc etc.  Very quickly I found myself getting all very dizzy and mixed up, literally describing every single line and shape I could see. branches upon branches, tangles of twigs, interspersed with swooping leaves. What the hell was I embarking on? The quick morning study that I could take to the studio in the afternoon became an all-day drawing, and to be honest not a very enjoyable one.

Because I was unsure as to whether this drawing would be something I could develop into something, and because I was tired and stressed from the tribulations of life, I found I was in an agitated frame of mind, but that was soon remedied by a good exercise of the vocal chords down the phone to a stupid man (another story) and a spot of lunch. After these 2 activities I felt a whole lot calmer and could resume the drawing exercise, remembering I was blessed to have the time to be able to spend the day drawing, and actually, even if the drawing didn't succeed or come to any use for any other creative ideas, it didn't matter.  Such failures in making art should be embraced as another memento for the scrapbook that is one's own creative experience and learning curve. So I carried on drawing, despite the fact my roses now looked like this, thanks to the slightly harrowing wind:

You might also notice from these 2 snaps that the light falling on the leaves had changed over the course of the time I was there for.  At this point it had become less and less about capturing the moment that I found inspiration in the flowers, and more about the interaction of all these delightful shapes, both negative and positive, and their interaction with one another. By the end of the day my drawing was done and looked like this:

Not a drawing that can be framed as it spreads over 2 pages in my sketchbook...but it is what I would call 'a slow burner' of a drawing. I had no idea of whether it had succeeded in anything once I had finished it, but what I did know was that eventually I had managed to immerse myself in its creation (though it took a while to get into that mental state!).  That's the greatest thing about drawing for me - that total engagement with your subject, that collaboration between the head heart and your hand...there's nothing quite like it, without wanting to sound too pretentious.  Looking at the drawing a couple of weeks later, I can see the potential to make quite an interesting painting from this, but still, I am loathe to make a botanical painting, or a second rate Georgia O'Keeffe, and what I really want to try and do is use the shapes as a framework on which to hang painterliness, experimentation, and a creative excursion.  But before all that, I felt that I should make a woodcut, to reinforce the strength of the shapes that I am so captivated by.  I felt by working with the composition in the medium that is woodcut it would help me to gain authority over the subject, remove the awe, and make the image mine so that I can do whatever I wish with it in the future.  The journey with my roses was underway.