Table of Contents
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Name: Min Lim
Date and Time:
Location: Personal Apartment Bedroom
Subject: Gridding the Woodblock
Aims:
To sketch assigned design onto given woodblock in preparation for woodblock cutting.
Materials:
6 x 4 inch Maple Wood Block (Making & Knowing Lab)
30cm Wooden Ruler (Making & Knowing Lab)
Chung Hwa 2B Traditional Pencil
Pentel Staedtler High-Polymer Eraser
Procedure:
Using the wooden ruler and traditional pencil, I sketched out a 5x7 1-inch grid onto the woodblock. I then worked on the individual designs in each 1x1-inch boxes. I would first measure out the spacing between each stroke, and make little notches onto the block on both ends of the 1x1-inch box. I would then align the ruler to the notches and draw a line using the pencil. This is repeated until design (for the straight lines) in each box is reproduced.
For the circles, the design stated to use dimes, quarters, and dollar coins to trace its shape. I found it difficult to steady the coin and trace its outline out at the same time, as my pencil kept intersecting the finger that was holding onto the coin. As such, some of my lines are rather faint and unsteady as the coin moved slightly when I adjusted my finger.
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I repeated this process until the whole 5x7 design is gridded.
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Thoughts/Observations:
I had quite a lot of difficulty with this task, as I have always been terrible at drawing straight lines. After an hour or two into the sketching process, I therefore lost focus and became less precise with the exact measurements of the lines. It made me realise how much focus it took - even for copying designs. I also wonder if we could determine how concerned the craftsmen were over exact replication.
Can manuscripts tell us how concerned craftsmen were over perfection of technique vs. production of design? How concerned were they over “getting things exactly right”? Or was there leeway written into the instructions as well?
While the produced design may look decent to others, the designer/craftsmen will always be cognisant of its flaws.
For a comparison of my wood block with other printing processes and outcomes, see my etching and engraving field notes, entry 2018.10.23, 9:15am
For field notes on other printing processes, see: