Abney Wallace Woodblock Prints
Each hand printed image is numbered and signed by the Artist.
These are woodcut prints. This means that each image is carved into wood using tiny u shaped gouges. The wood used is called Shina plywood. It comes from Japan and is manufactured for printmaking. Shina is in the Linden tree family. It carves easily and feels almost grainless. The knives used to carve with also come from Japan. They’re tiny, hand-forged u-shaped gauges. Once the carving is complete, the wood plate is inked using a roller called a brayer.
What you see when you look at a print is the inked wood that remained after carving. What reads as white was all carved away from the plate. The ink is an eco-friendly soy based printmaking ink. Once the plate is inked, the paper is carefully placed over it and the backside of the paper is carefully rubbed with a wooden spoon, transferring the image from the plate to the paper. This is a painstaking process and doesn’t work every time. The cream-colored paper also comes from Japan. It’s called Sekishu and is one of the oldest papers in the world. It’s still made by hand today.
