Colour-woodcuts with the reduction-technique
Most of the time I work on a plate of birch-plywood.
A drawing is made with pencil, afterwords I trace it with ink.
Then I fix the plate with shellac, so that the drawing will remain after cleaning the plate many times during the printing process.
After this I make a cardboard frame,in which the plate fits exactly. I then roll the plate in the first colour, put it in the frame and print it on paper. I repeat this as many times as I want to print this representation.
After this process I remove the ink and I cut away the parts that have to be remained in this colour (for only the higher parts will be printed), and then the next colour can be printed.
So in this way I cut away more parts again and again, until the woodcut is ready. In my work this varies between 10 till 15 printing-processes.
At the end of the process there is not much left of the plate, but there are about 25 good prints left.
In the left corner beneath the print you can find how many prints circulate.