We're delighted to feature the work of the great Howard Phipps in our new Woodcut and Linocut Gallery. Howard has explained the technique of wood engraving:
"Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, a development of the woodcut block, which was first used in Europe in the early fifteenth century to produce illustrative decorations, or single- sheet printed works. Woodcuts were made by cutting the soft side grain of a plank with knives and gouges, leaving the design, which was to receive the ink, in relief. With the invention of moveable type woodcuts could be used to illustrate books, as each could be inked at the same time. The art of wood engraving was invented in Britain in the late eighteenth century, and developed by Thomas Bewick of Newcastle. By engraving on end-grain hardwood such as boxwood, with tools comparable to those used by engravers of metal, it enabled artists to create finer images.
‘Boxwood Engraving’ (illustrated above ) by Howard Phipps shows the artist engraving a block which is placed on a leather sandbag. The boxwood ‘round’, top centre, shows an end grain slice with bark still on it, whilst adjacent to it is a prepared block made up of three jointed pieces. The burin-like tools used to engrave the mirror smooth blocks have traditional names such as spitsticker, bullsticker, and tint tool; these make possible a wide range of linear and textural marks that will appear as white against the black uncut areas when the relief surface is rolled with ink and then printed. Wood engraver’s usually darken the block prior to engraving, as the engraved areas expose the light yellow colour of the boxwood; they are effectively drawing with light, where as in a drawing dark marks are usually made on white paper. On completion the surface of the engraved block is inked with a roller, and pressure is applied in this instance using an Albion hand press, dating from the Victorian period [ 1862] .