Creating, cutting and printing your own woodblock

Step 2 Draw your image and copy it onto your block

I'm afraid you'll have to do some sketching at some point, and there's not a lot of opportunity once you start carving for much spontaneity. Some, but not much. You pretty much have to know what you're going to carve before actually sticking the graver in.

The two things you have to remember when sketching are that what you cut out from the wood becomes white, not black, so all those little lines you're cutting are actually going to become the white space, and that what you draw will be flipped horizontally when you turn it over to print it. If you want a print that is predominantly white (a 'positive' one, if you like) you'll have to do a lot of carving to get rid of the black areas. Doing a 'negative' print, which is primarily white on black requires less. I'd recommend this latter option.

When sketching I tend to jump between larger, more detailed images and small, 'to scale' ones. Buying the wood before you sketch helps, because then you can draw around it directly into your sketchbook and use it as a frame so you know you're getting the size right.

Once I have my finalised image on paper I scan it onto my PC. This makes it easy to reverse the image color in PhotoShop or some equivalent, and see what it really looks like as white on black. I can also then flip it horizontally for copying onto the block, since I know that once it's printed I'll get back the orientation that I originally intended. I hand copy it over to the woodblock with a pencil. I'm happy for the copied version to not be a perfect facsimile of the original. If you're a little more fussy (which is fine) you could use transfer paper or equivalent to trace over the original, pre-flipping version, and THEN flip it over and rub it down onto the block.