Windsor Printmakers Forum

In the second session of our two-part wood intaglio workshop, participants experimented with various printing methods to learn how to get the most out of the technique. While wood intaglio provides a gorgeous atmospheric plate tone due to ink collecting in the grain of the wood and printing, this makes it difficult to achieve a full range of lights and darks. To overcome this limitation of the medium, we applied ink in only selected areas of the plates, added colour both by hand colouring the finished prints and by relief rolling inks over the prepared blocks (essentially printing intaglio and relief at the same time), and used paper stencils to block out some areas from printing.

Some of the proofs from day 2:

Hand colouring with watercolour paints over a finished print (printed in black).

Intaglio inking the block in black, then rolling gold and blue across the surface.

Combining the intaglio + relief technique with double dropping (re-inking the block in a different colour and printing it a second time on top of the first print).

Intaglio inking (gold) with some areas left uninked (white), relief inking overtop (blue).

Instructor demo: intaglio (black) and relief (blue) inking in selected areas, with paper stencils laid between the block and the printing paper for additional white lines (on the right hand side).

On October 15th, participants gathered at the Windsor Printmaker’s Forum studio for the first session of a two-part course in wood intaglio presented by WPF Board member Jodi Green. Wood intaglio is a special technique in which fine line drawings are carved into wood blocks using small gouges. The blocks are then inked up in the same manner as copper or zinc plate etchings and printed on soaked paper, resulting in smoky, atmospheric images in which the grain of the wood is clearly visible as a tonal backdrop to bold carved lines.

Carving the block with the tinest of wood gouges. We limited ourselves to 1.5mm v-gouges for our first proofs in order to keep the lines small (large, deep lines can sometimes collect too much ink, which gets smooshy on your print when run through the press). Students also experimented with using an etching needle to scratch lines, which resulted in a softer, fuzzier line (similar to a drypoint line in traditional intaglio).

The pull: always the most exciting moment in printmaking.

First proof.

Two more, playing with selective wiping in different areas to control the quality of plate tone.

Adding chine colle: colourful woodcut flowers on Japanese paper pasted in during the printing.

Experimenting with multiple colours: rolling a second colour over the surface of an inked block to create an impression that contains intaglio (into the plate) and relief (surface of the plate) printing all in one run through the press.

In next week’s session the blocks will be altered to create some white space, and students will continue to experiment with combining intaglio and relief methods on the block to create full colour single-run prints.

A wall full of proofs at the end of a fun night of printing.

The opening reception for The Opening of the Archives exhibition was a great success. Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate our 22-year history of fine art print production, and thanks to our hardworking volunteers for making it happen.