Relief

Woodcut
The woodcutter, with small knives and gouges, cuts away the wood from between the lines that he or a draftsman has drawn on the smooth surface of a piece of wood. When inked, it is the uncut surface that takes the ink, and when carefully done, the process can produce a fairly good reproduction of a pen line. The woodcut is the oldest of the relief processes. It was used for printing textiles more than a thousand years ago, and in Europe it began to be used for the printing of pictures around 1400. Linocut is the same technique using linoleum rather than wood.

Chiaroscuro Woodcut
The design is divided among several blocks, each to print a different color, with or without overlaps. The areas cut away in all blocks will not print at all, and thus provide highlights of the natural color of the paper used, the light of the "light-dark" technique. The blocks must be carefully matched to provide identical placement of the design (registration) and the paper must pass through as many printings as there are blocks.

Wood Engraving
Tools similar to those of metal engraving are used on polished blocks of end-grain wood (usually boxwood), but instead of producing lines that will print, they are used to produce non-printing lines. It is the uncut surface that will take the ink and print, so the engraved lines in a wood engraving appear white on a black ground. By the middle of the 19th century, wood-engraving techniques were in universal use as the standard way of illustrating books and magazines. This remained the case until the end of the century when the photochemical processes rose to prominence.

Metal Cuts
In the late 1400's, people began to use relief printing surfaces of metal as well as wood. There is no practical difference in way wood and metal relief surfaces receive and deposit ink. In making metal cuts, the engravers cut away from the surfaces of their metal plates the parts that were not to be printed, just as the woodcutters did with wood blocks. Instead of using knives and gouges, they used the punches and engraving tools used by silversmiths and goldsmiths for the decoration of their wares. The metal plates, after being engraved, were fastened on pieces of wood and then printed as though they were woodcuts.

Note: In all relief techniques, it is the surface of the block that is inked and printed, and given perfect printing, all lines or surfaces will be equally dark. Moderate pressure in the press will emboss the paper to an extent, so the inked design will lie slightly below the uninked surface of the paper.

Works Cited

Goodfriend, C & J. Print-Making Techniques: An Abbreviated and Simplified Guide. NY, NY.
Ivins, William M., How Prints Look. Beacon Press: Beacon Hill, Boston, MA. 1943. 59-61.

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