Laser Cutting a Chinese Print Block (part two)

Part one’s project created a replica of a Chinese woodblock, in this case a woodblock from the 1970s that was in fairly good shape (at 40 years old!); the woodblock itself  was intact, and the wood carving still had pretty crisp lines for printing. We were able to successfully create a new block from the previous artwork in a fairly straightforward manner.

Continue reading “Laser Cutting a Chinese Print Block (part two)”

Laser Cutting a Chinese Print Block (part one)

For this project, the goal was to make a print from a Chinese wood block. The block depicts paper money that, after made into a paper print, is then burned up as an offering to ancestors during the annual Qingming Festival.

We didn’t want to use the original block itself for making prints for fear of causing damage to the original artwork, so we hoped to make a reproduction of the artwork. This was a great time to use the physics building’s laser printer, which could burn artwork into a linoleum block. From that, we’d create a replica of the printing block, then make new prints.

woodblock
The original woodblock
Continue reading “Laser Cutting a Chinese Print Block (part one)”