Two White Line Woodcuts and My Visit to Maryland

This weekend I visited my friend C.W. Brooks and we worked in their studio at the University of Maryland.

I'm in transition at the moment, having finished Cat and Owl In Love and new nudes for Naked In New Hope. I was gearing up to start my next book project, but after spending the weekend immersed in ART, I've decided I need to take some time to play around and see where it gets me.

I have been wanting to make more white line woodcuts. My last attempts were with my single-sheet book Four Cats last November.

This weekend I managed to draw, carve, and make proofs of images from two 4" x 4" blocks. The first is a self portrait, and the second is a spiral. They are a little rough. Instead of doing the traditional inking and immediate printing of each section, I spontaneously inked up the entire blocks first (which I enjoyed a great deal as I used to be a painter and often miss painting), let it dry, then wet the surface of the paper before printing and embossing with the wooden spoon. Unfortunately I failed to achieve even moisture, so the look is more soft than I wanted. I'm thinking I need to get heavier watercolor paper and soak it in a tray of water and then evenly blot it dry next time.

The third photo is the table where I did these works and Brooks doing their thing. (Brooks is not a printmaker per say, but you should really check out their Twitter feed.)