What is Woodblock Printing?
Woodblock printing is a technique of manually transferring designs to paper or cloth using relief images cut into wood. The technique was used by nearly every ancient civilization to create art and texts. The earliest known woodblock prints are from China and dated AD 220. The Chinese are thought to be the first civilization to use the technique to print solid text. Egyptians first used the woodblocks to print on fabric before using the blocks on papyrus. In India, the prints were mostly used to create repeated patterns on textiles. For more information on the history of the technique and to view images of early prints, the best place to visit is Wikipedia. While an ancient form of printing, it is still in use today by artists.
To create a printing block a design is sketched onto the wood and then the areas, which are not to be printed, are carved out. The end result is a relief image on the block. This relief image will produce a single color print image. For multi-colored images, the design must be repeated on several different woodblocks with different areas of the block removed so only the section that will hold a specific color is left in relief.
Once the block is created, there are three different methods to transferring the design to the paper or fabric. The first is called pressing but would more accurately be referred to as hammering. The paper or fabric is laid on a flat surface, the inked woodblock is placed design side down on it and the back of the block is struck with a hammer to imprint the design on the material. Alternately, the material is laid over the design on the block and then the back of the material is rubbed or rolled to transfer the ink. Presses are sometimes used as well, especially for complicated multi block designs such as those used to create pages of text.