I was walking down the icy sidewalks today when I started thinking again about printmaking and what kind of role I want it to play in this new project. I had this earlier idea of creating chiaroscuro woodcuts which I definitely want to pursue, but I question whether I will be able to replicate the fluidity and motion that is so easily found in the ink drawings. At the same time, perhaps that would be an aspect of the medium that could lead me to new places that I’m not able to anticipate.
I briefly thought about reversing the woodcut process so that I print on black paper using white ink, but I think I’ve never really been a fan of how white ink looks in printmaking. There’s something so much deeper and richer about the impression of black ink that I’m pretty sure I want to retain in the work. However I end up going about it, one thing for sure is that I want to invest a greater effort on changing up the directional movement of my marks in the relief. The woodcuts I completed for the Digging Series largely focused on horizontals, and I’m excited to see what can happen if I completely throw that consistency away.
At the same time, I would really like to get back into doing some large scale monotypes. I know that when I was making the monotypes for the Digging Series that my focus was much more on specifics and details in the figures, and I’m interested to see how my simplified approach to the figure would translate itself in this medium.
“Wandering”, a woodcut that inspired the Wading Series
