Woodcut Workshop Goes On

Tonight was week 3 of the latest woodcut workshop in Belmar.  All six students were there and jumped right into working.  One of my students is a teacher and found some unwanted wood carving tools at her school, which allowed her to finish working the whole block.  Thus she was ready to print early on, which got the other students excited about printing.  By the end of the night, five students were ready to proof their blocks.  (the only one who wasn't was the woman who joined the second week, and was also doing the largest piece in the class) Below are a few photos showing the results of that first set of prints.  None of these pieces are officially done, but all were impressed by what they had accomplished so far.  One thing I've seen many times over the past few decades is how excited students get when they start inking their first block- as the brayer starts depositing ink on the surface it gives instant power to the positive and negative shapes.  Days and weeks of work are suddenly paid off.  When the designs are good (and my group tonight had some good designs) that first inked block can be powerful.  That is quickly followed up by pulling the proof, which moves it to paper and lets them see the mirrored image for the first time- a bit of a shock for those not used to it.

I had a bunch of partial pieces of Okawara, which were plenty big enough for the small blocks most had gone with for their first block.  The thin Japanese paper is easy to print, and almost instantly they could see the ink in the paper as they started hand printing.  I believe that most of them plan to make a few changes before pulling the final version of their intended print, but all have seen enough to be excited.  Most had me cut them a second block and a few started on them before the night was over.  One student raised the question of whether they could make copies to trade with each other- but they had seen a bunch of group folios the first week so they know this can be done.  (I'd prefer they learn the basics and create a finished print in our limited time class, but as artists I can't stop them)  

We'll be off next week for the holiday, then have one more scheduled meeting.  There was some talk tonight about continuing beyond next week, and I'm open to running another session later this summer, but that's up to a lot of other people.