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Summary: Texture can be achieved in relief printmaking by using different types of wood. Learn how to get more texture with expertise from a printmaker in this free printmaking video.
Views: 614 | Tags: art, techniques, relief, press, fine, printing, printmaking
Francine Affourtit Francine Affourtit is a woodcut printmaker and has taught woodcut printmaking to children, adults and teachers for a number of years. Francine is new to Austi... read more
Now this print was also printed on a press, as this print is. Both of these prints are press printed. However, in this image, you can see some of the jagged edges of the surface of the wood. And that's because in this print I was using a plywood, construction grade plywood that was found as opposed to buying a block of wood that was specifically made for printmaking, as it is in this print where you have the cleaner edges and the nice soft layers of the sanded block of wood that gives a nice untextured surface. In here, you can see more of the texture of the wood. The wood-grain is going to come through the jagged edges on the surface of the wood print. This can be an interesting element to your print, if it's what you want to do. If you want to accentuate the rough textures of the wood and really bring into account that it is a carving on a piece of wood, rather than attempting to hide that with the more smoothly-textured wood. Also here is the paper is not printmaking paper. This was, again, a piece of material that was available and laying around when I was creating this print. And so, I'm not even sure what kind of paper it is, but its limited texture and coloring as well as how well it absorbs the ink. Its not absorbing it at an even rate as much as this piece of paper did to this ink. But it gives it a different quality. And as you experiment with papers and woods and inks, you really can see the multitude of different effects that you can get with wood cut printmaking.