Wood Engraving

Pen & Ink ~ Tavira, Portugal

I’ve taken to making ‘woodcuts’ and ‘wood engravings’ with nothing more than an iPad and stylus using a simple drawing application (Tayasui Sketch). Essentially, I use an additive/subtractive approach to making marks for developing the drawing so that it looks like both a wood engraving and scratchboard. It takes me a long time to do […]

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Spruce cone wood engraving

A Practice Engraving

This wood engraving was to serve a dual purpose; to get back into making engravings and to create a Christmas card design. Unfortunately, life got in the way and I didn’t get it done in time for mailing although the sketch was ready and waiting. I’ll try again next year. Ultimately it was a joy […]

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Box of Box

As a happy consequence of a major reorganization of my woodworking shop I’ve collected all my boxwood scraps into one Rubbermaid container. They are not really cast-offs – naturally – but very useful to the block-maker. In fact, these bits could be looked upon as a kind of block-maker’s porn; very exciting stuff! I’ll be […]

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New Virtual Booklet

I have added a new page flip booklet about wood engraving in my library. After a long absence I will be adding content that I hope is useful on this site while balancing my time in the studio. Hope you enjoy it. You can find it by clicking on this title; wood-engraving

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History of Wood Engraving

Here is an article about wood engraving from 1844, reprinted along with illustrations from a sheet that I purchased at a very cool bookstore in Astoria, Oregon last November. Box is the wood mostly used by modern wood-engravers; pear-tree, and other wood of a similar grain and fibre, being now only used in executing large […]

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