This is the first time I've ever carved a wood block rather than linoleum, and I think it came out okay! The design's nothing particularly meaningful, I just based it on some stock photos that I thought would have a good mix of shapes to practise carving in wood. It works as a smaller companion piece to this one, I suppose - this one is only A5 size. All in all, good practise all round; some more notes below.
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The main thing I learned was that I have to think more carefully about the cuts I make on wood as opposed to on lino. Lino is more brittle so if you carve a line and fold it back, it will snap pretty cleanly along the fold, whereas the wood will splinter. So I'll have to remember to... not do that.
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On the flip side there were a couple of bits where I accidently carved away something I didn't mean to, but I managed to stick the carved chunk back in with a tiny bit of blutack and that seems to have worked really well.
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It was mostly done with gouges, but I did so some of the very fiddly bits with a knife, which really confirmed to me that the traditional woodblock carving method of only using a straight blade is every bit as impressive as it looks.
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I'm not sure it will replace lino as my preferred medium, but the wood was very satisfying to carve. Taps into the fundamental urge to whittle, to make a bit of wood into a smaller bit of wood, I suppose. Good to know that if I manage to get any wood cheap I can work with it okay.
