Reduction Woodcut

Sunset on the Rocks, reduction woodcut, 20" x 30.75"
Perhaps my favorite method of relief printing is the reduction block. Some people call it the suicide block, and that might tell you what I love about it.

The reduction block is a way of printing an endless number of colors from one block. The advantages are that the image develops slowly, one color at a time, as the artist works the board. And registration is simpler: since only one board is used there are fewer variables in the layering of the colors. But the disadvantage is what gives the medium its nickname: once the printing gets started, any errors in cutting are very difficult to undo. That mean that I tend to follow the print as it develops, rather than to push it in a predetermined direction.

To begin a reduction print I start with a fresh board and ink it, uncut, with the first color that I plan to use. Then I pull a quantity large enough to allow for the edition I plan to print (plus the errors that are sure to come). Next I clean the board, cut away the areas of the board where I want the first color to show, and print all the sheets in the following color. The print develops as I cut and print, cut and print, changing the color each time.
My favorite way of printing the reduction block is with transparent inks. It is almost like glazing a painting, with the underlying colors mingling with the colors that will follow.

Here is one reduction block whose composition is based on a plein-air sketch that I made in Cypress. (The original study is here).