Creating, cutting and printing your own woodblock

Step 3 Cut your block

I think I mentioned earlier that you'll need something soft to put the block on as you cut it. There are special tools for this (aren't there always?) but a book wrapped in an English tea-towel (or, if you must, a standard hand towel) seems to work ok. The soft surface helps hold the block in place, whilst also allowing you to move it around as you cut. Yes, you move the block, not your hand. More on that in a second.

Put the handle of the graver in the palm of your hand and wrap your fingers around the blade so the point feels like an extension of your index finger. That's what it feels like to me, and what it looks like in my head, although the second image below probably shows it a little clearer than what I'm trying to describe.

Keep your hand in a fairly fixed position. When it comes to cutting you'll just move it forward and backward as you need to, and move the wood beneath it with the other hand to line up the cut. You have to figure out the angle of cut so that it's not so high that the blade keeps jamming, and not so low that it skitters too easily across the top of the wood. Take your time. Breathe easily. But try not to make too many mistakes. Even quite shallow scratches are hard to remove and can show in the final print. This is where patience counts. The most cathartic bit, if you like. Or the most stressful.

Be especially careful when you come to the end of a line that you're carving. It's quite easy to keep going past where you intended accidentally, and where two lines are supposed to meet at a nice right-angle you can easily end up with them crossing one another.