School's Out

Tonight was the last night of my inaugural BAC woodcut workshop, this fourth meeting coming some 6 weeks after the first one. Both of my regular students were back and ready to work. Linda quickly finished the second block (started last week) of her multi block print, while Kim took on the last remaining part of her block, the figure itself.

We did a test proof of Linda's second block with a warm dark gray, overprinting it over her proof on Kinwashi from last week, and ending up with a pretty good registration despite having not planned for it originally. We decided to go a step further and print both blocks on some Rives, using the registration system. Above Linda is inking the first block with the lighter color of the pair, and below can be seen printing it.

Kim's piece was conceived from the start as black and white print, so after she finished cutting the image, she inked it and pulled two proofs on the Rives. Below are the student results from the workshop.

Above is Linda's image based on her photo of trees in a woods. She will likely play around with the ink colors in later printings, and we prepared a third block tonight to eventually add some foliage and other colors. Meanwhile, in its current state it has a real German Expressionist feel. Below is Kim's portrait print. It's a very nice print as is, but I think a second color could further strengthen the composition.

Overall I think that the woodcut class was a success. I definitely plan to talk to the BAC about trying it again in the future.