I was happy to recently receive an email that my wood engraving “Storied Stone” was selected for inclusion in the Society of Wood Engravers (SWE) 86th Annual Exhibition, which will first be on display February 6-25, 2024, at the Bankside Gallery in London. Here are some in-progress photos of the making of the wood engraving.
An early step of my drawing the design directly on the block with a Pigma Micron marker.
Textures and details were culled by many photos I took of flint knapped and knapping rocks I took in Patagonia, Arizona at Jeanne’s sister Chris’ ranch.
my ipad made it easy to view many photos and to zoom in for details that I could utilize as I developed the drawing.
The rocks and petroglyph designs continue to develop.
I had plenty of petroglyph photos too, to use as reference.
Much of the engraving work was done during the first lockdown of Covid-19.
I continued to use reference photos, taking textures from various rocks and petroglyphs as I didn’t want to copy any specific photo. I often looked how a rock was illuminated in a photo and create a similar sculptural lighting in the engraving.
Here a few detail photos taken with my macro lense.
A view of the block with a raking light, ready to print.
Printing the block was another matter that I really struggled with, I could not print the image consistently. It took me two more years to finally edition it, utilizing what I learned from Graham Williams at the Florin press this spring 2023.