[Baren]: The mailing list / discussion forum for woodblock printmaking. Baren Digest Saturday, 24 July 1999 Volume 08 : Number 639 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hideshi Yoshida Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 23:13:25 +0900 Subject: [Baren 5068] Re: now I've done it (boxwood question) Dear Sheryl , You wrote : >Did you use it for engraving or carving (end-grain or plank) and did >you prepare it yourself? How did it work out? Enquiring minds... and >all that. I think the board isn't an end-grain because it seems to be quite big . Can you see the growth rings on it ? I let you know _my style_ of the preparation for engraving . Firts, you should polish it with sandpaper (I use water-repallent paper), from less than #400 until #1000 . If it is well-polished , you can see reflection on it. Next, paint it with watered-down Indian Ink (Japanese Sumi). The ratio of Indian Ink and water is 1 to 2. You mustn't paint it jet black, it should be gray. After it drys, trace a sketch on it with (black)carbon paper. And then engrave it with Burins. Finally, after finished engraving, you can print it. I use baren and oil based litho ink. My baren is midium 8-strand hon baren, however I think thick 8-strand or 12-strand baren is better. It is too difficult to explane how to use burins and sharpen them in words, I advice you to check the WEN(Wood Engravers' Network) web site. The URL is < http://members.aol.com/WENET/home.html > This is just my style. Other engravers do different ways I think. I hope my advice helps you and if you have questions please ask me. Sincerely yours , Hideshi ------------------------------ From: Julio.Rodriguez@walgreens.com Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 14:00:54 -0500 Subject: [Baren 5070] Re: boxwood question Regarding boxwood, engraving and all the rest..... there is a wonderful book by Fritz Eichenberg (german immigrant book illustrator & woodcut artist, d.1990 ) which has a compilation of all his work, the title escapes now, something like the "The Art of the Graver" ???? anyways, at the end there is a little chapter with some wonderful illustrations on the boxwood blocks, preparation and his technique. Is a big (probably very expensive) book, but if you are near a library... One thing the artist mentions is that later in his carreer as boxwood became more expensive and hard to find he turned to using boxwood on the plank rather than the endgrain and other sources of wood without losing much on detail. As a matter of fact he points out that only he can tell which prints were carved on endgrain vs. the other method.... If you can get your hands on this book is really worth a look! Julio ------------------------------ From: "Andy English" Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 21:01:39 +0100 Subject: [Baren 5071] Preparing Boxwood Block I have never used - or tried to make very large blocks for wood-engraving. I find it a great method for making small intense works. I would always use lino or sidegrain woodcutting to make a large image. I'll start at the beginning. We were suffering an acute shortage of good quality boxwood in Britain until 1987 when "The Great Storm" struck - the nearest we have had to a hurricane. Box trees that were destroyed then led to a plentiful supply. I bought a couple of branches of box - about 4 feet in length and up to 5" in diameter. Like most box, it had split during the drying process. I started by getting a friend to cut the branch into "rounds" about 1" thick using an electric bandsaw. I then set up a thick glass slab in the studio and gathered a series of sandpaper sheets of various grades. I started by taping a coarse sheet to the slab and then placing one of the rounds on it - using a little pressure and moving in in a circular motion until most imperfections had disappeared and the side was flat. I then changed to a finer grade. I rather enjoyed the regular mechanical action and meditated on the images that I might engrave onto the wood. I ended up with the finest grade that I could obtain and worked the block until it was as smooth as a mirror. I then polished the block with a soft cloth. At this pont it was ready. I left most of the blocks in a round shape. These often had splits in them and I used this to influence the composition - working with the natural wood to find the image. You can make larger blocks by sawing the rounds into squares and then gluing and clamping them into larger pieces before smoothing them. I had fair results but, to be honest, prefer to buy larger pieces from a professional blockmaker - rather than embarking on many hours of work only to find that there are flaws in the block that affect the final print. I have also had excellent results from using rounds of olivewood. I buy olivewood ashtrays from second-hand stores (they arre mainly souvenirs from Mediterranean countries) and smooth the back to make a block. They are not good to use with a press but they burnish well. I enclose and example of a print engraved on the back of an ashtray (Total cost about =A31.00). You can see an example at http://freespace.virgin.net/a.english/artists.htm Andy ------------------------------ From: arafat alnaim Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 16:37:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Baren 5072] Boxwood and block preparation Greetings, >Sheryl Coppenger wrote >Not that I have time to do anything about this at the >moment, but does >anybody know a reference for preparation of boxwood >for wood engraving? Boxwood is the traditional wood of the wood engraver. It is manufactured in dense, smooth, unblemished slabs with upper surfaces that are perfectly polished, making the blocks pleasant to feel and hold. Sizes vary greatly, but boxwood slabs can be obtained as large as twelve by twelve inches, or in special cases twelve by twenty- four inches. The most important characteristic of this wood is that it is made from ends of wood grain, part of cross section of the tree. A single slab is actually composed of many small blocks that have been glued together so perfectly that none of the joints will appear when the slab is inked or proofed. The wood is never a visible part of the engraving as it often is in the other woodblock media. Because the working surface of the end-grain wood is uniform in all directions, the engraver's tool can cut equally left or right or up or down. The engraver can use very fine straight- edged cutting tools unlike the V-shaped knives and chisels used by linoleum and woodcut makers. There are two other characteristics not found in either linoleum or side-grain wood, control of the cutting line and great durability. Engravers have tried many other materials, but neither metals nor plastics have been found useful. Only end-grain pieces of wood have the right qualities. They hold the tool firmly and enable the point to navigate among the sides of the grains without causing either burrs or chip-out. Good boxwood will give sharp, clean lines, lighter in tone than the amber surface color of the wood. Turkish box from the Crimea is the best boxwood, it was used exclusively until the 2nd World War. Today South African or South American boxwood is suitable for all engraving purposes. Brazilian boxwood, the least expensive, but it is very porous and its surface must be coated with a sealer- filler liquid, found in paint and hardware stores. The wood requires years of preparation before it is suitable for engraving. First the small logs, some only three inches in diameter, must be thoroughly air dried, which means several years of storage in dry rooms. Then they are sliced into 'rounds'. In this rough state they are squared and glued together to make rows of blocks that are glued together. These rough slabs are put into the surface-finishing machine that grinds off most of the roughness from both sides. The final polished finish is given either by machine sanding or by hand planing and the use of a furniture scraper. The center of each round must be removed because its relative softness. Blemishes-or places where a small limb grew from the tree- must be cut away as well. Of each round perhaps 40 percent ends up in a finished slab. End-grain blocks, whether fresh from the wood maker or completely engraved and aged many years, are stored vertically, with a slight air space between each block, on shelves well away from changes in moisture. New slabs should be stored in their newspaper wrappings until needed. Vertical storage assures that moisture will penetrate both surfaces equally, preventing the possibility of warpage. In Bulgaria the blocks are brushed with immersed cloth in linseed oil, liquor or white to protect the surface from moisture and scratching and warped with paper and stored in dried place without direct contact with sunlight and heat. The glue traditionally used to joint the blocks together is not waterproof and is quickly dissolved on the surface by spilled liquids, leaving hairline cracks where the glue once was. Caution also applies to temperature changes. All woods are affected by sudden changes in temperature, and engraving wood is no exception. So never let direct sunlight fall on the surface of a block or within minutes it will crack, usually beyond repair. Even the heat of an incandescent light bulb too close to the block while one is engraving can cause warpage. Thomas Bewick's large 'The Chillingham Bull' was left on a windowsill by an inebriated printer's helper and cracked irreparably in the sunlight. A good rule is always to stand the block upright next to your engraving pad when you are not working. Not only will this prevent temperature or moisture problems, but also nothing can fall on the surface and make a dig or scratch. Minor imperfections in the surface can sometimes be removed by careful sanding or scraping with a wide wood chisel, (0,5" to 1" width) held with its cutting edge vertically and pulled toward you so that it takes away very fine wood particles that are called 'flour'. Large imperfections in the wood or errors made while engraving can be corrected only by removing that part of the surface and inserting a new piece of wood. Different engravers have their own way of preparing the block for engraving. Some draw in ink on the natural wood surface of the block. Others cover the block in a grey watercolor wash and draw on this in pencil. arafat ------------------------------ From: kim and paul Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 15:40:29 +0000 Subject: [Baren 5073] Re: Baren Digest V8 #635 Mary, your "Field" print is very beautiful. My mind wandered off with it for a while. - --Kim Kaschimer Medina ------------------------------ From: Wanda Robertson Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 18:53:31 -0700 Subject: [Baren 5074] Re: Preparing Boxwood Blocks Andy, what a beautiful engraving. And on the back of an ashtray? Which brother is you? The smaller one or the taller one? I'm going to have to keep an eye out for olivewood mementos now! I think that Greg had a supplier of olivewood in Kenya. He had some other very exotic woods, that I can't remember (or pronounce) the names of, too. I'm sure he'll tell us about them, as his exchange #2 print was carved out of an assortment of these exotic woods. Wonderful stuff! Wanda ------------------------------ From: Graham Scholes Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 19:27:12 -0800 Subject: [Baren 5076] Re: Preparing Boxwood Blocks Wanda wrote.... >I'm going to have to >keep an eye out for olivewood >mementos now! I tried all carving a little on all the pieces he had brought. The one that was up there as being quiet workable was Nkalate wood. It was a little harder than basswood and very close to cherry that I had tried here. The grain was tight and I should think would make excellent blocks. The other woods .....which I can't recall the names of.....did not show any promise and so did not attempt to remember them No sense fill my mind with useless info. Graham ------------------------------ From: Sheryl Coppenger Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 23:50:34 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Baren 5077] More on boxwood=20 People really seem to have warmed to the subject. Thanks to everyone for the comments so far and the comments to come. You guys are the best! I'm going into the office in the morning and I'm going to make a stop in Franz Bader bookstore (an art bookstore) and see if they have any of Eichenberg's books. I did a quick check of amazon.com and several books written by or illustrated by him are still in print. One, "the Artist on the Witness Stand" had an intriguing title and price ($2.50). I never heard of him until today so no idea what it's about. Also thanks very much for the pointer to the wood engraver's network. They're having a workshop in West Virginia the first week of August. Wish I'd known earlier. I've done a little engraving but my efforts aren't good enough for the web page yet. I have books but I probably need a class. So far I've been carving on end-grain maple and I probably have enough to last the rest of my life no more engraving than I do because the last time I ordered several cherry blocks and one small maple block from Graphic Chemicals they sent the whole order in maple by mistake. They tried sending more cherry but it was unusable, so I wound up taking their offer of 20% off when they adjusted the price if I would keep the maple they sent. They're large, too, 5x7 up to 9x12. Made of lots of little pieces. I also have a small piece of boxwood or lemonwood (I forget which) which seems to be coated with shellac or something. Haven't tried cutting that one yet. I went over to my studio in the middle of reading email (it's only a block or so away) and I looked at the grain and re-measured the width if the board. I misremembered the width. It's 7 inches which is still rather wide. One end is painted, the other isn't and I can tell by the grain (which is faint) that it didn't come from the center of the tree. It's very heavy and when I try to dig in with my fingernail I have a hard time making a mark. The wood is very light in color. The guy at the store where I bought it said he had made a piece of furniture out of it a few years ago and it was dense and hard to cut. The place where I bought it specializes in hardwoods for makers of fine furniture and woodturners and also sells some wood flooring. It's an interesting coincidence that Andy brought up olive wood. There was a small piece of it on the floor the day I bought the boxwood. That was interesting stuff. Had a very waxy feel to it. I've been searching the web for boxwood references, found out that the National Arboretum here in DC has the largest collection of boxwoods in the country and that there are "over 100 species, varieties and cultivars". See http://www.ars-grin.gov/na/collectn/boxwood.html for the national boxwood collection homepage. If I call over there someone might be able to tell me what if any boxwood gets this big. I think I remember something about basswood or beech sometimes being called boxwood in the vernacular. I looked in my furniture textbook and I think it's too heavy to be basswood but I might believe it's beech. It's at least at heavy as oak but doesn't have the large pores. Identifying trees was a lot easier back in girl scouts when the leaves and bark were still on. :-) Thanks again folks. I'll let you know if anything else develops. Sheryl Coppenger ------------------------------ From: John Ryrie Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 18:27:05 +1000 Subject: [Baren 5078] Remore on wood engraving This wont be of any use to any one but maybe of interest. I was given a two round pieces of end grain wood last year it's an Australian wood called Snappy Gum. It it grows in fair north Queensland in a small patch in the middle of the desert. I don't think that I'll be able to get more. It is not as good as boxwood of course but is much better that Maple which is the alternative hear. I have a friend who uses Ebony this is a much more expensive wood. But she gets it from a clarinet factory it's the round cone shaped peace that comes from making the bell of that instrument. There is another Australian wood that can be used Huon Pine this is ok for wood engraving but extremely good for woodcut. I have a few peaces of side grain wood but it's very hard to get as it is a protected species that only grows in Tasmania. You can sometimes fined it recycled but it is highly sort by musical instrument makers, woodcarvers, furnisher makers etc.. It was mentioned that perspex has been used it is true that it is no substitute but I have found it good for practise and get the feel of the tools. I do perspex engravings but that is only as an intaglio proses. Boxwood is very hard to get hear you need to get it from the UK and because of the exchange rate of the Australian dollar cost is very prohibitive. Still the number of good wood engravers in this country is growing. John ------------------------------ End of Baren Digest V8 #639 ***************************