Notes on Techniques

These are some of the techniques used by Eric Thake to produce his Christmas cards, bookplates, and bookand magazine covers.

Woodcut/wood engraving

Woodcut and wood engraving involve an inked block of wood that is used to print a design on paper. Areas which appear as white in the original design are hollowed out of the surface of the block using sharp metal tools. When the block is covered with ink, only the uncut parts come into contact with the inking surface. The cut, uninked areas print as white, while the uncut areas, having received ink, print as black (or whatever colour is used).

Linocut

This technique works in the same way as the woodcut. Linoleum has long been popular for printmaking because it is cheaper and more readily available than the good-quality wood used for printmaking, and it can be obtained in larger sizes than woodblocks.

Metalcut

Another technique comparable to woodcut. The artist cuts directly into a metal block with metal tools, creating the equivalent of a 'stamp'. The uncut areas, standing in relief, take ink and print it onto the paper; the cut areas do not take ink, and leave the paper white.

Process

This term covers a number of modern picture-printing techniques. When used by Thake it refers to a photographic means of transferring a design to a printing block, as opposed to the direct hand-carving of the block. Direct cutting, especially on the small scale of bookplates, requires very acute eyesight, while process engraving allows the artist to work on an original of almost any size. By his sixties, Thake had come to rely on process techniques. As he said in a note on his bookplates, 'By 1971 engraving was over for me'.