Carving Design Into Wood Block for Relief Printing

Video Transcript

"Now, that we have our image transferred we can begin to remove the wood with our gouges. And, we'll remove some wood. I'm taking large marks to create a sky effect. With wood, it's, it's actually easier to cut with the grain, than it is against the grain. The, the gouge is the tool of choice to cut against grain. The C gouge is the tool of choice to cut with the grain. The mark that I'm actually creating is a white mark on a black surface, so it's actually a negative mark, not a positive mark. So every mark I'm creating is almost the opposite of what it appears to be. So, there's some examples of how to use the, the gouge for cutting against grain. To create a sky, in fact with some larger marks, I'm going to go with the grain. I'm also going to use my wire brush to rough up the wood grain, which will reveal the surface of the wood. Another interesting aspect is used to find objects on surface, this surface down here, this is going to be the pavement and I want it to be textured. I can also stipple, creating a texture. Whether you're cutting wood or linoleum, the the ways that you cut are, are relatively similar. Just remembering that wood has a grain, a direction, and linoleum does not. You really don't have to remove a whole lot of the surface of the material. It's more about where the mark is, relative to your image. Just remembering that something like the C gouge with the wood really doesn't like to go against the grain of the wood, as much, and I can demonstrate that here. Trying to cut a couple of grooves in this area, you can see how it wants to chip a little bit and if I was to turn the wood at an angle, I can remove more material with the wood surface. Linoleum, you, you can go in any direction. Linoleum leads itself to what's called directional cutting, as well. When you cut the linoleum, you can really see the artists hand in the direction that the tool went."