Studio Saturday - woodcut based on weaving

Even the best of the "Korean dolls" prints left several things to be desired:

1. using better paper than the flimsy stuff. It was hard to position.
2. using more congenial colours, rather than what happened to be at hand.
3. getting the registration right ... did the warping contribute to this...
4. using better wood - all the time spent carving, and I'm reluctant to pay out an extra fiver for the wood? False economy!

At least the loosened wood didn't break. I put the board between lots of layers of newspaper and set books on it, then let it dry. It went flat at first, but released from the weight it developed a bit of curvature, so it went into the nipping press for a few days, and I've been getting on with something else.

The new project is based on a weaving by Anni Albers. I was intrigued by how it uses the dark and light threads in the warp and weft to form the pattern, but when it came to draw out that pattern for carving, it cried out for a little creative readjustment -

Instead of using the small board and carving four blocks, I found another bit of carpentry plywood in my stash of offcuts and set to work on that, plunging into doing a reduction print.

Too enthusiastically - that middle 4-block should have been a 2-block, oops! Major readjustment in design was needed!

Nor did I wait to get Decent Wood - the long-desired visit to Intaglio Printmakers for "better" wood and paper happened several days after my "realisations" (above).

This is the difference between the 4mm shina ply (centre) and the 6mm, which costs twice as much -

 Meanwhile cutting on horrid tough splintery suboptimal wood continued...

and eventually the first block was printed, on thin paper (left) and on the new stuff. The difference in colour is alarming, but hey this is still a bit experimental.

 The extreme graininess may be due to too much nori so I then used just dots -

 and the pigment was very dilute -

 Another experiment was to keep diluting the pigment with each print, and at this stage there's not much difference between the first and last of the six prints -

 Or is there? -

I'll be diluting the pigment in the same way for the other layers, and it should make quite a difference when all three layers are printed. Or will it?

Those prints are 20cm square, no border. These have a 1cm border and, using a floating kento, were a lot easier to register -

A little break for a bit of sewing, one morning - lavender bags (using lavender from my garden) and a stuffed dragon (for the grandbaby, who already has a mirror-image dragon) ...

The second layer of "Anni Albers" is  nowbeing cut, amid extreme precautions so as not to get into any mixups this time -

 At the end of the day, just the printed crossbars need cutting away.

 'm regretting using this plywood. See what it's done to my nice little hangi-toh - the toughness has driven the blade down the handle! On the left is the hangi-toh from "the cheap set", a better choice for this wood and I shall continue using it, with frequent sharpening.

Fortunately Tom has been able to pull back the the blade and I'll keep the smaller one for less arduous carving.