Hand Pulled Relief Prints

In the Stages of Freedom series there are three wood blocks used – one, the trellis is shown here. 

Relief printing happens when a raised area, as the trellis here, is inked with a brayer.

The inked wood block is then placed ink up on the printing press bed. 

A piece of paper is placed on top of the wood block in contact with the ink. Other materials such as light weight boards or heavy paper, are la

This wood block is the background of the heart shape. This block and the following block need to line-up perfectly. This detail is called “registration”. Not only do the wood blocks need to be exact, but placement of the paper onto the inked wood block also needs to be exact.  Any mismatched orientation or placement results in an unregistered print.

Also, notice that this block is in reverse of th

This wood block is the detail of the heart shape. This block and the previous block are in registration. This allows the red heart shape background and this detail with veins, arteries, chambers, etc. to look like an image of a heart.

To have portions of the heart image (with both the background shape and the details) show through the trellis in a gradual manner a “mask” of the heart was created by