Wood Engraved Doodles

I’d forgotten to put up a shot of the reverse of the Lincoln block, where the artist has doodled and practiced his technique. I got rid of most of the grunge on the surface, and you can see some interesting things, like the name “Geo. H. Weagant” which corresponds to the lead block in the collection for “Weagant’s Pure Copper Amalgam”. Weagant was a Cornwall dentist.

Also note the shadowy image of a man or boy on the right side of the block.

I’ve flipped the image in Photoshop so that it reads right.

Click to see larger

OCAD Book Arts Fair

The first big dump of snow this year is piling up outside and I feel very content sitting here in the studio watching it come down. I’m thankful that it didn’t happen two or three days ago, when Holly and I were whipping up and down the 401 to Toronto and back to exhibit at the Ontario College of Art & Design Book Arts Fair.

This venerable (25 years old this year!) show has certainly evolved over the years, now housed in the spacious and well-lit open hall inside the college. One of the things I like about the OCAD show, and book arts shows generally, is the number of younger artists and artisans involved. Clearly OCAD students are encouraged to sign up (table fees book arts fairs, in Ontario at least, are accessibly priced) and they bring an innovative and fresh viewpoint to how paper and text and illustration and binding can be interpreted. I wish I had taken some shots, but photography can be considered a bit inappropriate at art and craft shows sometimes.

The show was fine, but just as important to me was the opportunity to meet socially with other printers and wood cut artists. We had dinner again with George and Michelle Walker (http://www3.sympatico.ca/george.walker/) and Ian and X, who does beautiful lino prints of animals. It gave me the opportunity to show George the collection of engraved blocks and the prints I took from them, and got some feedback.

George’s work was amongst the first to inspire me to pursue printing, and then illustration. He has tapped into the power of the block, and creates strong prints with strong messages. He’s exploring the wordless novels (as opposed to the contemporary graphic novel — pictures with words) in the tradition of Frans Masereel and Lynd Ward. George’s Book of Hours featured almost 100 wood engravings silently telling the story of the early morning hours in the live of the people who perished in the twin towers on 9/11. Very powerful.

At the show I got to speak face-to-face with Wesley Bates (http://www.wesleybates.com/home.html) after interviewing him for the CBBAG newsletter by phone a couple of months ago. Wesley is an amazing illustrator and his wood engravings have a youthful vigor and energy, they’re emotive and celebrate sensuality. I would say George and Wesley are two of the three finest wood engravers in Ontario, the other being Gerard Brender-a-Brandis in Stratford, Ontario.

Enough name dropping for now. Back into the studio to plan this years Christmas card. Well, season’s greetings, since most may not get it until January!

Revisiting, Rethinking and Re-doing

By the end of printing all the blocks in the portfolio, I looked back at the earlier work I had done and found it wanting. Four blocks in all went for reprinting, three of which are illustrated below. In all cases, the rework involved printing the block with less ink and more detail.

First attempt left, second right

In this case, I applied several layers of makeready all around the face and the collar. My blacks aren’t as black as the first attempt, but then again, the lines of the face are more crisp, if not completely black.

Same issue again. Makeready to the face and head alone, nothing to the background, neck and body. Since the block may have been unfinished, or not well thought out, there was a large area of black under the chin, making a rather elegant Pre-Raphaelite cameo appear rather horrid. I used makeready to emphasize a chin-line which is the only time I tried to alter a block in any way from the original.

Finally, one of the last blocks I printed, then reprinted. I won’t show them both — the scanner can’t pick up on the difference but now I can’t decide if I want the slightly darker version of the one shown below. Sigh.

Next up, presentation, arrangement. Setting type for the booklet and binding up copies.

How much for just the harness?

Here’s the latest effort hot off the press today. I started the make-ready for this one yesterday, finished it this morning and printed in the afternoon. It’s all very time consuming.

Is the groom included?

I’m thinking this rather robust horse might be a bit of a handful for this little old fellow. The old man, the horse trader and the horse are the darkest parts of this block. In the end, I had to allow a little bit of gray in on the old man, while trying not to fill in detail everywhere else.

I did loose a bit of detail along the bottom. I know this because while taking proofs with the press only lightly inked up, I found this in the bottom right hand corner (click on it to get an larger view):

Compare it with the print above and you will see that the details are completely filled in, concealing what I think reads: ‘S.A. Dedman 1881′ or it could be ‘Deemon’ or ‘Deamon’. They’re all a little sinister. The blown up version of this shows the challenge of trying to preserve the detail. None of the areas along the bottom 16th inch of the block had any make-ready, but it filled in anyway, and there are still areas in the interior of the block that are not as black as I wish they could be.

The Reliable Mr. Kilburn

As a break, I took on a block that I suspected would be less of a challenge, and I was right. Samuel Smith Kilburn’s change of address block proved to be a stroll on the beach compared to, well, most of the blocks from this collection. Very little make-ready (on the lettering only) and a nice, crisp result, showing that Mr. Kilburn was an accomplished wood engraver.

Make-ready, set, go.

We had our artist friend Laura Starkey in the studio with us yesterday working on some of the commercial projects going through the studio. while she worked, she had a view of me pulling proofs, furrowing my brow over prints, peering through a variety of different lenses of varying degrees of magnification, cutting little bits of tissue and pasting them on an overlay sheet. During a break from this atypical Type A behaviour, I chatted with Laura about what I was doing and trying to explain the dubious benefit. It’s great talking to someone who ‘get’s it”. To an untrained or indifferent eye, the nuance between the too much ink and too much impression is simply that one version a little darker. But to someone who appreciates fine printing, the attempt below, “River Road”, is not a prime example of press craftsmanship:

Too much ink, too much impression, not enough meake-ready

The most obvious clue is the black mess at along the bottom of the print, particularly at the right side. I used too much ink under too much pressure, causing the excess to squish out over raised lines and hang there for the rest of the run, filling in — just marginally — the white areas and killing the detail — and not just at the bottom, but over the entire impression. I sacrificed detail for solid blacks.  I’ve said before the reason I want to present these wood engravings to the world in a portfolio is to show off the talent of these craftsmen. Pulling prints like the one above somehow defeats that intent.

So back to work. I purloined the paper intended for the broken Book Boy and began to work more intensively on the make-ready for “River Road”.

I used a harsh task master as my guide. Some months ago, I pulled a print of this block using gloss paper, and the resulting proof was close to ideal:

Crisp print on glossy paper

The tree silhouette in the middle is solid black, while there has been little loss of detail around the bottom and top edges. Laura asked if I considered doing the entire portfolio on gloss paper, and I admit, I was tempted. After all, it shows the skill of the carvers better than any other substrate. But there is another purpose buried in this exercise: that in tackling these blocks I come away with some greater skill at printing challenging forms. Otherwise I might as well just send these blocks off to some printer who has already mastered the skills, but that doesn’t help me learn.

So with a pristine print beside me on the feedboard, I began to strive to recreate the same crisp impressing on Italian paper. I starved the press of ink, took proofs and added to the make-ready sheet interpreting the grays. Once I began to see a more evenly gray tone, I added ink to the press in micro increments, slowly building up until the darker areas at the bottom were crisp lines with no in-fill. It didn’t take long for this to happen, which meant I had a long day ahead of building the make-ready and pulling proofs.

As I worked, using a magnifying loop, I watched carefully this part of the print:

Close up, bottom right corner

When it got to this point, I felt I could no longer add any ink to the press, and with ample pressure thanks to make-ready in the dark central areas, I had gone as far as I dared with this block.

The tree isn’t the striking silhouette seen in the proof on glossy stock, but overall I think the effect is greatly improved, and this print will go in the final portfolio. The photographs don’t do much justice to the prints either. Looking at this reduced, it seems almost lighter on one left side of the crack, yet when I look at these issues under the glass, everything is fine. Optical illusion? Too bad about the crack. There is almost nothing a printer can do to rectify this. In relief printing, you can’t print what’s not there. Then again, after 150 years, I think we can excuse a few cracks.

The best of times, the worst of times…

That pretty much describes this year, but with a month of cold and flu behind me, I have inked up the press and begun work again on the wood engravings. I began work on the block I titled ‘School Days’ showing a boy on his way to or from the local school house. Or perhaps he was taking some time off from school, heading for the local fishing hole. He strikes me as more of a Huck Finn type than a Tom Brown. Although his reading on the way might suggest a studious bent….

Whatever his story, I began the tedious makeready and began to have some trouble about the middle of the block, along the line of the bottom of his coat. After a great deal of fussing with not satisfactory results, I unlocked the form to discover that this wonderful block was now in two pieces, making it the first and hopefully only victim of production amongst these old blocks. I always thought if I would have any breakage, this lad would be a prime candidate.

First, it was a thinner piece of wood, requiring a lot of card beneath to build it up. In retrospect, I should have mounted it on another piece of wood to give it more support. The victim is shown at right, beside a block closer to type high (.918 of an inch)

Second, the engraver of this block worked along with a very definite natural flaw in the wood: a natural crack or break in the trunk. It may be that this was a discarded portion of a larger and more solid section of wood. In the proof above, the area to the left of the figure’s waist is the beginning of the fissure, shown better below:

Here’s a close-up of the where the block broke:

It is now glued back together, but the clamping process followed the natural curve of the wood, and there is a faintly detectable ridge now which will show clearly in print. Besides, I’m not going to risk this block again. Because this is fairly straightforward line work, I may have a magnesium plate made to include this block in the portfolio. Otherwise it will have to be a laser print, which I’m not that keen on.

In better news, I printed two other blocks on the same day, neither of which required any make-ready.

Probably one of the most detailed blocks in the entire edition, I had struggled with proofs of this a few weeks ago, finally deciding that less emphasis on crisp blacks showed off more the awesome skill of the engraver, and presented a better tone.

 

And what can I say? Perhaps after breaking a block, I’m feeling a bit like the fellow taking the tumble. But I carry on….

The Wonderful Mrs. McGarrigle

This is the first of two entries that will talk up two destinations in the village of Merrickville. About a month before the Studio Tour, Mrs. McGarrigle’s Fine Mustard…. Find Food offered their window to Holly and myself, your humble scribe, to display selections of our wares during the tour. Holly did her usual magic with the display and I gather the staff and owner of McGarrigle’s were pleased. We were thrilled and honoured to be there.

The owner began making her award-winning mustards in her kitchen (just across the street from us) then after a series of moves to rented premises, she purchased a storefront building in the centre of town, giving Mrs. McGarrigle’s a permanent home. The store has become a draw for tourists to Merrickville, offering the McGarrigle’s brand of mustard, imported sweets from Europe, exotic sauces, olives from Italy, a cheese bar, even fresh bread every day! All that, and quality merchandise for the kitchen and home. You really have to visit to get the experience.

Thanks again to Janet and her tremendous staff at McGarrigle’s Mustard & Fine Foods!

25th Tour a Wrap!

Holly and I had a great tour this year. I can’t say we were entirely ready — we would have liked to have done more of our own publicity and a mail-out, but the tour fell in the middle of production madness, so the two weekends felt kind of like a holiday.

Shown is the demo set-up that I had on the little Kelsey platen. Of course, I’ve flipped in Photoshop so that it reads right.

Congratulations to the Merrickville Artists Guild!

Merrickville Studio Tour

Studio Tour, final weekend, October 3 & 4, 10 am – 6 pm.

For two weekends in the fall, many of the artists who have made Merrickville their home open their studios to the public. It was a mad scramble for Holly and I to convert our studio from cottage industry to art gallery, but it came together, just in time.

The tour went well. Saturday was sunny and temperate, and we were busy all day long. Sales good. Sunday was rainy and slower, and people seemed to be as tired as I felt. Maybe I was projecting.

In the week between the tours, we convert back to our little crafts factory, but leaving the bones in place. The transforming studio…

Holly and Laura working away in our own miniature ‘cathedral to art’, with Holly’s work on the walls.

Ah, the press shown left making its living as a 2400 lb table. I took this photograph a couple of hours ago, and the boxes (14 in all) are already gone on their way to the halls of commerce.

Linocutting tools on display, and a compositor’s stick (used for gathering type from the trays) at bottom centre.

Wood engraving tools and examples from the work-in-progress — 19th century wood engravings.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the room in the studio to display a tray of type and demonstrate typesetting, but people get the idea from samples of set type that I have out.

Next weekend, I’ll take shots of the studio in full tour mode.