Theresa Haberkorn
Woodcut is a relief printmaking process in which an image is carved into a plank of wood with gouges and printed onto paper. The carved areas will not print and will remain the color of the paper. The remaining wood is rolled with a thin layer of ink and printed in a press to apply pressure and transfer the image to a sheet of paper, resulting in an image in reverse of the wood block. For my woodcut prints, I begin with a master drawing that is carefully transferred to blocks of wood in alignment with each other. For multiple colored prints, a separate block is traditionally carved for each color, and printed one at a time onto paper in a printing order from the lightest color in value to gradually darker colors. The wood blocks can also be re-carved, or reduced, and printed again over previously printed colors. Most of my work combines multiple blocks with reduction carving to compose the final image and can contain a dozen or more colors.