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Name: Amanda Faulkner
Date and Time:
Location: Making & Knowing Lab
Subject: Receiving my woodblock
Today I was given a woodblock at around 11:40 am in the Making and Knowing Lab. I decided to try and cut a version of the design I would use for this woodblock onto a linoleum block for the sake of comparison. I quickly found that the kind of image I could produce for my linocut was a very pared-down version of the woodcut design that Dr. Stijnman gave to our class. Therefore, I don’t imagine that my woodcut will end up looking very much like my linocut at all. In fact, I doubt that my finished woodcut will look very much like Dr. Stijnman’s woodblock design.
Name: Amanda Faulkner
Date and Time:
Location: My apartment
Subject: Graphing the design onto my woodblock
I began the process of graphing my design onto my woodblock at 1:30 pm. Using a ruler, I created a border for my image. The blocks we were given were larger than the 4x6 image we were tasked with graphing, so my border gave me a 4x6 inch space to work within. Next, I began creating my grid according to the instructions on the sheet that Dr. Stijnman provided for us. I divided the block in half and started on the top half (which I thought of as the more “linear” half) first. I divided each half into six blocks, and then divided each of those six boxes into two boxes, leaving me with twelve boxes in total on the top part of the woodblock. Then, I worked on each box one at a time.
I had a great deal of difficulty drawing straight lines and holding my ruler in place properly. To start out with, I erased my work and attempted to correct it when I made a mistake, but after a while the erasure marks began to blacken the woodblock and make the lines even more difficult to discern, so I decided to use the eraser less. This meant my lines were less straight than they otherwise may have been, but that they were more clearly visible. I was comfortable with this trade-off since I figured that my lines were unlikely to have been straight anyway.
I used a ruler to do the gridding on the top half of the block until it came time to draw diagonal lines across the boxes I had gridded. Because my lines were not always straight or even, I would not have been able to use a ruler to draw my diagonal lines. Once I stopped using a ruler the task became somewhat easier. I suspect that my diagonal lines turned out just as well freehanded as they would have turned out had I used a ruler. (Granted, that means “not very well” in either case.)
After taking a brief break to rest my hands, I switched to using a regular pencil. I had been using a mechanical pencil to draw my lines up until this point. I found a regular pencil to be slightly easier to handle. Here is what the top of my block looked like when I switched to using a regular pencil:
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After about three and a half hours, I had completed the top part of my block. Here is what the top half of my block looked like at this point :
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Next, I started working on the lower half of my block. I started by tracing the half-circles at the right edge of my block using quarter and a dime. Then, I drew the full circles on the right-hand side of the design using a quarter and a dime. I completed the full circles on the left-hand side of the design next using a quarter, a dime, and a dollar coin. Finally, I completed the remaining semi-circles using a quarter and a dime, and I used a nearby lid to trace some of the larger circles on the left-hand side of the design.
During this process, I found that it was easier for me to attempt to replicate the design if I started with the larger circles first and then worked inwards. Since my lines were imperfect, I had drawn was not as helpful as it otherwise may have been. The design I ended up with is a rough approximation of the one I set out to create. It bears a resemblance to the design in question but I doubt it could ever be used to successfully create a woodcut. This process took me about seven hours. I found that the spasticity in my hands increased as I worked, which I had expected. The lines are uneven and not always straight, the spacing of the smaller parts of the design is uneven, and many of the circles are misshapen. That being said, it still turned out better than I expected.
My graphed woodblock can be seen below.
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Name: (Also the name of your working partner)
Date and Time:
Location: My apartment
Subject: Reflections on my woodblock
I thought I should conclude this section of field notes by saying that while I have yet to do anything further with my woodblock, the process of gridding said woodblock made me think a great deal about the importance of precision and order in printmaking. Each step in creating the gridded woodblock pattern seemed predicated on correctly -- and precisely -- performing the previous step. I understand that this had a great deal to do with the design that I was given to work with, but it is a point worth considering further.
Our methodology emphasizes process rather than product, but in an early modern workshop environment the product would have been key. In order to create a desired product, one would have needed to master not just one specific skill but a large set of skills that overlapped with and impacted one another. I saw this throughout the printmaking process, not just in gridding the woodblock, but I thought I would reflect upon it here. Doing things in the right order and in the right way made it possible (or, in my case, less possible) to create the right design, which would lead to the creation of the desired woodblock, which would finally produce the desired print. No skill -- or step -- stands alone.