Pressing Matters

Right, yet again procrastination has gotten the better of me and I have not posted in some time *I bow my head in shame, I really do* but here I am with a lot to talk about most important of which - my sixteenth birthday ahem. I received some lovely, grand spanking new printing gear to play with so when I have the time I will write a tutorial on making prints if you´re interested! Anyway, something also that is important is that I have printed my newest wood engraving! For anyone who doesn´t know what one of those are, its a very detailed form of relief printmaking that involves patiently carving into a block of wood to create an image. I designed this print during August whilst on holiday:

                 

Then over a period of four/five weeks, on a piece of Lemonwood, kindly donated to me from Chris Daunt, I carved my design bit by bit. Of course I got to that stage, part way through, where I thought "Why did I even start this", I am renowned for making things difficult but I managed to force my way through. Here´s a little feed, a journey if you like, from beginning to end *excuse the bad photo quality*

                 

                 

                 

                 

                                   

I was able to proof the print on some Japanese Kozo to see how it printed before printing the edition.

Now printing: - Whilst designing this print, I bumped into Geri Waddington on Twitter, Geri is an amazing wood engraver... you should seriously look her up and admire her fantastic work!! She is the secretary and soon to become the chairman of The Society of Wood Engravers... I know right!...Impressive.

Anyway, Geri kindly offered me the chance to go visit her and use her relief press to print the edition. She showed me the two mighty fine presses she owns and got me to use all sorts of papers to print on - you´ll be surprised at how much of a difference it makes. Here are some photos I took through out the day:

                                 

                                  

                   

Geri also handed me some lovely endgrains of what turned out to be Boxwood!! I handed them over to my dad who resurfaced them to a fine polish. I´m sure that I will use them soon... thank you Geri for such a productive day!!

                      

                 

                 

So here we have.... "Bedtime", an edition of 25 printed on quality Arches 88. This will be available from my Etsy store in the next few days. It will also be available, along with all my other prints at the Stour Valley Community School Autumn Fayre next Friday 14th. I will be there carving my next print so come and visit!

                             

Bye y'all

Will

Making the Cock Pheasant print

So I've been busy building up my stock of prints in the hopes of setting up my Etsy store again.  Prints such as the wood engraving "Home Sweet Home" have been doing really well (if I do say so myself) so make sure you get your hands on one before they run out! Anyway the print "Cock Pheasant" has just this second come out and is now available from both myself AND the Hare's Tail in Clare (for more information, visit my Facebook Page) so I thought it would be constructive to give you guys something you absolutely, definitely, uncontrollably desire - a little walk-through of the experience...see knew you'd be pleased ;)

                 

It took me a while, as it sometimes does, to develop a design that I was happy with. It's funny how sometimes I can sketch something so quickly and be really pleased with it and then other times I can spend ages trying to find a design that is satisfying. Anyhow...once that was done, I painted it up in full with some watercolour and then transferred the design to a block of Plywood and carved it into what would eventually become this, the blue block.

                 

Matching colours can be a pain, especially when you're trying to minimize waste, luckily, on this occasion I knew exactly what I needed to do to achieve the best colours. Rolling a thin layer of ink is easy enough but being able to ensure an even layer on the block isn't. It took me multiple attempts to get a clean print but once I had the knack it didn't take me too long to print the edition.

                 

Once all the blue was printed, I carved the red block from a sheet of lino, carving away all the areas I didn't want to print. 

                   

Now...this print was made around the two weeks I went on holiday so the blue had a huge drying time! However this only made printing the next colour easier.

                   

I used my book press to print these guys, the press weighs a tonne and it sure does require a little elbow grease to work it!  "Cock Pheasant" is an edition of 25 prints, all numbered, named and signed ;) If you have any questions then please comment below and I will try to answer them as soon as possible. Of course you can head over to my Facebook page and contact me there if you'd prefer! For now I'll leave you with a little snap shot of the next print "Midnight Stroll" that will be coming out hopefully next week *fingers crossed*. There is a short video of the making of this print over on my YouTube account, so head on over and take a look! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RvWPmAD7ks

                         

Have a lovely rest of the summer!

Will Baker Illustrator :)