I have been exploring the creation of woodcuts through laser cutting recently, and today’s post is about a thank you card I have printed from beech veneer. The company Sawn Constructional Veneers produces absolutely beautiful veneer sheets. They are not layers of thin pieces of wood glued together as most veneers are - rather, they are thin sheets of wood cut at 2.5mm upwards. In preparing for an upcoming exhibition at Perth Museum, I want to do a number of woodcuts, and therefore, I need to assess how different woods behave on the laser cutter, and then inked up and put through a printing press. On this occasion, I decided to trial beech.
As ever, this print started as a sketch. I decided to adapt the Blue Tit Birthday Card I designed for my daughter a few months ago. Blue tits are very cute little birds, and I thought it was sweet how they can convey a simple message with ribbon. I also wanted to experiment with portraying blue tits in a single colour, and in particular, eliminating a solid outline all round the bird. It is pleasing to the eye when a foreground colour blends into a background colour. You can see this in the initial sketch. The shape and perspective of the bird flying down is delineated solely by its beak and eye markings.
Transforming my sketch into a vector graphic on Inkscape enabled me to prepare it for laser cutting. You can see that the beechwood cuts beautifully and has a lovely, clear woodgrain. When I was ordering veneers to go through the printing press, my brief was for woods which could withstand the pressure of a press - but once it was cut, I realised that as beech wood is so durable, the rasterised areas (ie the areas which have been blasted away to provide the details which are too fine to be cut) may not be sunk enough and may be transferred onto a print. To prepare the woodcut for printing, I oiled it up with plate oil, to prevent it from sucking in all the ink.
The woodcut looked beautiful printed up for the first time. However, the problem I anticipated - that the rasterised areas would be too high - was indeed an issue. I used my woodcutting tools to cut away some of the areas. Every new print needs a ‘formula’ to ensure a successful transfer of ink from the woodcut onto paper. In this case, it was generous inking of the woodcut; cartridge paper cut to size and slightly dampened; and moderate pressure through the press.
I was super pleased with how this print turned out. I really like how the grain is still so visible, and it is apparent this is a woodcut. I have also learned a lot about how beech wood behaves, and how I need to be mindful of a range of factors when planning a lasercut I intend to print from. This image is available for licensing - both the vector image and the woodgrain print. Contact me if you would like to use this image.
