Woodblock Wednesday - been cutting a bigger block

As it's half-term at college, we were on our own. I had lots of cutting to do for the print-into-book course as we'll be printing from those (big! 15x23cm) blocks on Monday.

Not on my own, though - one of the class members lives locally and came over for woodcutting+chat. In the end we spent four hours putting the knife to the block, with the help of intermittent refreshments -

 A close-up of the texture that will be the background of the print. The "ribbons" are yet to be cut. You might notice a resemblance of the curls on the block and the curls of wood cut away from the block....

I had already done a "trial texture" on the other side of the block. I'll print it, for the record, and then cut the texture away, leaving the islands, which won't be inked in the "proper" printing -

The ribbons for this version have been cut out, leaving a solid background ... I'm considering double bokashi but haven't thought of what colours to use. In the print-into-book class we don't have much time to dither, it's all go as time is so short!

 The other side has the design in reverse, and will have a textured background.

Everything needs the gutters and kento cut, but that shouldn't take long. It's so lovely to put on a podcast and get cosy with the knife and the wood. I've been catching up with 5 Live Science and some Gresham lectures.

The rubbing gives some idea of what the texture will be like -