Wood engraving creates fine details with bold woodcut characteristics, perfect for adding illustrations to letterpress cards, artist books, graphic novels, comic books, broadsides, or as stand-alone images. Learn to cut your own original drawings into miniature end-grain hardwood blocks and print them in a limited edition. Instruction will cover materials, creating and transferring images, tool sharpening, engraving and proofing. It is the perfect at-home print process – portable, meditative, no printing press is necessary and now with water soluble oil based inks, clean up is safe and easy at home.

Join me in a way that meets your level of comfort and needs in 2021: year 2 of a global pandemic:

In-Person Wood Engraving Intensive at John C. Campbell Folk School August 1 – 7, 2021

Join me for a week-long wood engraving workshop at the John C. Campbell Folk School August 1 through August 7, 2021.
We will use the Folk School’s printing presses and airy, spacious, and light-filled print classroom among the mountains of North Carolina.
This is a great course for beginners and intermediate skill levels. No previous experience is necessary, but it is helpful to previous drawing experience.

This will be an in-person course with precautions taken for Covid-19. Register by calling 1800-365-5724. OR visit the course listing online to register: https://classes.folkschool.org/class_details.aspx?pk=23617

Wood Engraving: Virtual Live and Recorded Instruction (8-hours total), 4 Wednesdays: June 2 through June 23, 2021.

Learn to cut a design into end-grain hardwood blocks through a combination of pre-recorded video demonstrations and live meetings via Zoom. Each participant will receive a class kit prior to the workshop. Instruction during 4 sessions covers material basics, creating and transferring images, tool sharpening, engraving, DIY printing, plus Pro tips and tricks.

This is a great course for beginners and intermediate skill levels. No previous experience is necessary, but it is helpful to have some previous drawing experience.
Perfect for those who have difficult schedules – all live class meetings will be recorded and available for viewing (streaming only) during the workshop and a couple weeks after until July 11, 2021. So you can watch any classes you missed at anytime!

Held via Zoom Wednesday nights 8pm–10pm ET: June 2, 9, 16 and 23

For specific supplies information and to register < click the underlined text

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Wood engraving creates delicate, fine details with bold woodcut characteristics, perfect as stand-alone images, or as illustrations to letterpress holiday cards, artist’s books, or posters. Learn to cut your own original drawings into end-grain hardwood blocks and print them in a limited edition. Instruction will cover all parts of the process – materials, creating and transferring images, tool sharpening, engraving, and proofing. All levels welcome – some drawing experience helpful, but not required.

This class is designed for beginners and intermediate students of wood engraving — you’ll learn everything you need to know to cut your own original drawings into end-grain hardwood blocks and print them in a limited edition. Frogman’s Print Workshop is an institution — an organization that is known as a crossroads for print cross-pollination and print networking.

You’re not just learning a new print skill at Frogman’s – you’ll have a FULL in-person experience including special activities including a faculty lecture series, open portfolio viewing sessions, gallery crawls, and costumed bowling tournaments. Expect barbecues, pool parties, karaoke, fireworks, and free concerts. The workshop will culminate in a very special final banquet. More information regarding these activities will accompany your confirmation packet. Be prepared for anything!

Sign up today on Frogman’s website: http://frogmans.net/workshop-info/#price

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After finishing the engraving, the block was printed on the very same printing press that Melanie VanHouten (JSP Artistic Director) helped me move into my studio on a frigid day in January 2017! The “Thank you” cards received the same royal treatment as the engraving – going through sketches, color and font selections – before a final design was selected. While the card was digitally designed, the printing process is the same as the engraving — printed on my 1925 Chandler & Price clamshell press. For a sculpture park, I wanted to get a really nice embossment of the design in the paper — creating a sculptural relief — from relief printmaking! The card’s paper, Flurry, is made using wind and hydro energy — responsible environmental choices are the default for Starpointe Studio and JSP.

Photograph of the old tobacco barn – ant’s eye view. (Photo credit to Joanne Price, June 7, 2018)

Panoramic photo with newly planted trees and soon to be planted native flowers and grasses for prairie restoration on the south side of the driveway to Josephine Sculpture Park. Photo credit to Joanne Price, June 7, 2018.

One of several sketches first submitted to Artistic Director, Melanie VanHouten, for approval.

After making some changes to the drawing/composition, a final sketch is ready to be transferred to the 3 x 4 inch endgrain Maple wood block for engraving.

The end grain block with drawing transferred and engraving process begun. The surface of the block is toned with black printer’s ink to help my brain remember that what I carve away will be white. Some elements of the drawing are further clarified and/or decided as I engrave.

Further progress on engraving. The white is a chalk I use to help me see the lines better. In wood engraving, the block is cut by hand with tools called burins – one tiny line/mark at a time.

The finished print displayed above the engraved block. Notice that the image is reversed.

And finally the green part of the “Thank you” card being printed on my 1925 antique printing press.

And then, 2019’s end of the year thank you note to donors (who gave over a certain amount) received a handsome bookmark with part of this image — printed directly from the woodblock with some hand-set metal type. Josephine Sculpture Park is a favorite place of mine — supporting art in Kentucky, serving a largely rural area, creating a space where science and art can come together (ie: NASA Museum Alliance Night Sky Tours, Frankfort Audubon Society programming), and JSP’s commitment to nature and art education, and sustainable land stewardship. JSP supports all the things that I love and believe in! If you’ve never visited JSP before — you should visit now — they are open everyday, 365 days a year. Find the sculptures I used in the print! Hint — they are not where I have drawn them.

Illustration with hand-set metal type.

Front and back of the 2019 “thank you” bookmark.

The post Josephine Sculpture Park Special Commission Project! appeared first on Starpointe Studio.

Cutting the block is very physical and obviously there is a huge amount of wood chips created from a block this big!

These prints take a lot of work and planning and sometimes I don’t get things right the first time, which is easy to forget when I’m only posting the finished pieces and not every step of the process. As I was cutting the 18 x 24 inch woodblock, I realized I should have included a prey animal to allude to the hunting tradition. So, I decided that I would add a little rabbit as part of the screen printed colors.

3 of the 5 screen printed colors complete – the 6th color comes from the woodblock.

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Register today!

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– A Jackalope in black & white — a woodcut interpretation of the mythological wild-west-beast.

– An illustration for Wells Book Arts Center’s fifth chapbook, Negative Compass by Bret Shepard.

– And three wood engraved illustrations for the University of Kentucky King Library Press’ upcoming letterpress publication, “Ma non e una cosa seria” (But it’s not really serious, 1917), a Luigi Pirandello play translated from Italian by Ann Colcord for the University of KY’s King Library Press. A comedy in three acts following a wealthy womanizer and the homely/humble manager of a boarding house. The book will be available late 2018 from the King Library Press.

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The conference theme is “Go West.” In that spirit, Gillespie sold the Jackalope portfolio exchange theme to 23 participants: “The frontier is forever mysterious, and popular mythology has forever been a part of the lure to travel to the West… Certainly, there must be wild, enchanted species still hiding away in the lost recesses of the back country… If there is a single favorite illusion that captures and thrills us most, especially when we think of going West in America, it may be the idea that there are members of Lepus townsendii, the White-tailed Jackrabbit, that have evolved to grow horns.”

In addition to the great theme/subject of the portfolio exchange, Gillespie gathered a great group of artists – my kinda tribe – how could I refuse?

And so, I researched my subject and made some sketches. At first I thought this might be a late addition to my Animal Terrorists series – the origins of the legend of the Jackalope are rooted in a relative of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) – the Shope Papillomavirus. Whereas HPV corrupts cells in the human cervix to build cancerous tumors, in rabbits the papillomavirus manifests as hard, keratinized horns. I explored the idea of a micro/ macro perspective with Shope or HPV cells or a close-up of skin and hair follicles. These all seemed to obvious and literal, so I opted for a lighter comparison to Peter Rabbit and a visual relation to the symptoms of HPV. Not exactly cutesy origins…

A visual documentation of the process:

The original thumbnail sketches and the final sketch, ready to be transferred to the block.

The beginning of the cutting. This is a woodcut, not a wood engraving – a transition in scale from my usual work.

I blacken the relief surface as I cut, so I can see the drawing and marks easier.

I pulled a proof on tracing paper so I could more easily develop the rest of the composition. Combining screen printing and woodcut can be tricky, but I have a pretty good system to help match the two processes – that’s a whole separate blog post!

This stencil is ready to print. The stencil is made by coating a polyester fabric with a photo-sensitized liquid emulsion. The image is hand-drawn with opaque paint marker on a translucent film-like sheet. The areas of photo-sensitized emulsion that are exposed to UV light harden and become water-proof so that I may print with acrylic, water-based inks. Unexposed areas wash away with water to create the stencil.

Colors one and two printed – the first was yellow and the second, blue.

And the third color, a transparent darker green.

Finally, printing the woodcut on top of all that screen printed color.

I struggled with the title, trying to tie together the awkward ideas behind it and the angry, devil-horned Peter Rabbit. I settled on “The lumpy lore of the Jackalope.” Hilariously, one of the other participating artists had the exact same title – minus one word!

The transparency and overlapping of colors make magic – my favorite part is the brown eye.

View the entire Jackalope Portfolio on exhibit in downtown Laramie, Wyoming October 3 through 6 during the Mid America Print Council Conference!

Check out the black & white version of the Jumping Jackalope available for sale in my online store.

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I often participate in printmaking’s great tradition of print exchanges. This image is for one such exchange organized by the Wood Engravers’ Network and Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum, called Seize the Carp! This long-term collaboration is in the spirit of carpe diem – seize the day – for wood engravers. This block will soon go to the Hamilton Wood Type Museum for their collection, joining the other 5 or so carp-related engravings. The hope is that they will be used by visitors to create fun and unique posters or other letterpress art to celebrate Carp Fest held in Two Rivers, Wisconsin every year. Once these prints are gone, they are really gone!

In deciding on the composition of this print, I thought of the Carp Fest and decided to include a small boat with an angler, fishing for that winning carp! The water element was great fun to play around with—bubbles, ripples and waves—plus the fish scales.

Come see the block and print at the 2018 Kentucky Crafted Market! I’ll have these for sale as well as my other prints, books and small boxes! The KY Crafted Market is Friday March 2, 5-8 p.m., Saturday March 3, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sunday March 4, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Please join me – I’d love to see you!

The drawing on the block—a quarter round piece of Maple end grain – the same wood that Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum uses to create its wood type.

Making good engraving progress here. The white in the block is powdered calcium carbonate (chalk used in gymnastics and mountain climbing) that helps me see the engraved marks better.

After several proofs and more engraving, I’m finally ready to print these!

The post A Big Carp in a Small Pond – Seize the Carp! appeared first on Starpointe Studio.

The red, orange and black are sharpie markers that I use to help define areas of the drawing on the block. The white is a powdered chalk I use to help me see areas that I have engraved – otherwise the engraved marks are too small and lack the proper contrast to see what I’m doing well.

More progress engraving textures and defining form – and my thumb for scale.

Here is the block and printed proof – the aim of this work. This block is now safely delivered to Larkspur Press and will be printed soon – after Wendell Berry’s approval!

The second commission is for an appraiser and curator in Nevada – this is to be a holiday print for close friends and family. The client provided photos he had taken of areas in Nevada and told me of his recent study of the artist Hans Meyer-Kassel. Using imagery that held great meaning to the client, I proposed a few loose drawings, settling on the one below. The resulting print, Carson City Wild, will be editioned soon. The client was kind enough to allow me to print an additional edition so that I may sell the print to others that really enjoy its spirit!

The surface of this block was stained with black printers ink and then the drawing was transfer using carbon paper. I then reinforced the drawing with micron pens (black) and add the brightest whites with a white colored pencil. the tan marks in the sky portion of the image are the raw end grain wood that my tools have exposed. The yellow squiggles seen in the lower portion of the image are remnants of the carbon paper used to transfer the image.

I have added chalk dust to the lines to help my eye see the marks and to better see the graphic contrast that will be in the final print.

The block sits on two very firm leather pillows of sand – this helps to bring the block closer to my eyes, thus saving my neck and back as well as allowing me to spin the block while I make marks with my trusty burins.

The last stage of development (before I get ready to print the edition) involves a lot of proofing and engraving and proofing and engraving, etc. I printed the block first, made some adjustments by engraving more here and there, and then printed it again to see how it looked. I did this about 9-10 times before I was pleased with the image.

The post Summer Commissions in End Grain appeared first on Starpointe Studio.

Randy Steward inks up his first wood engraving with Laura & Jude Poulette assisting.

This past weekend Starpointe Studio had a full class of folks to learn wood engraving! It was an intense two days, but was very successful – each participant learned about the material, tools, history and process of wood engraving and then created an engraving of their own design. After each person printed their edition, we participated in an age-old printmaking tradition: the print exchange!

The students of wood engraving have patience, and they engraved and proofed and engraved and proofed so many times to refine their images – all this work in 14 hours! I’m so proud of what they accomplished – wood engraving is not easy or intuitive for most.

Maggie Helms inks up her engraving – her edition of 21 prints in progress.

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