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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Register today!

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Join me for a weekend wood engraving workshop at Asheville BookWorks (Asheville, NC) Friday, Dec. 14 (5pm–7:30pm), Saturday Dec. 15 (10–5) and Sunday Dec. 16 (10–5). Wood engraving is your secret weapon for creating detailed images while retaining the bold relief characteristics of woodcut and linoleum. This process is perfect for adding illustrations to holiday cards, artist’s books or broadsides or to create a stand-alone image. Students will get to know the tools, materials, printing process, and history of wood engraving through hands-on projects and demonstrations. This intensive course will give participants the basic skills to create a unique wood engraved print. And with a print exchange at the end of the workshop, you’ll find the perfect opportunity to start your own art collection! All skill levels are welcome.
Register HERE

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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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