My process for making a single block (typically black and white, but one can print it in any color ink on any color paper)is very simple and satisfying way to make art. I have the process down to a reflex now so typically a print like this take about 2 days to go from sketch to finished proof. 

First I start with an idea. This project is a Collared Pika, an adorable cousin to rabbits and hares that lives in boulder fields and scree piles in Alaska. They build up little hay piles all summer, stored in "barns" tucked in the myriad crevices of the rocky talus. 

Here are a couple rough sketches, it is the middle of winter now and I can't go out and find many Pika, they don't hibernate but they are hunkered down in their little subnivian cavern world. I have some field sketches of pika but they are small, so I watch some nature documentaries about them and "field sketch." 

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I pick one that I like best and will best fit the pattern of the grain on the block I have sanded for this piece. 

Then I directly sketch onto the woodblock while looking at this page in my sketchbook. 

After the drawing is fairly complete on the wood I begin cutting, moving from lines that cross the grain with my small skew knife to taking lines with the grain with a very fine "vein cutter" chisel. My goal is to leave as much wood as possible and only take out those details which will carry the picture. I actually first learned about this technique by reading Mike Mignola comics. That guy has an amazing drawing style that is a huge inspiration to me.  

After I have carved as much detail as I feel comfortable with being able to see against the plain wood, I get ready to ink for the first proof. I put off inking the block for as long as I can for two reasons. First, it makes further carving very messy. Second and more importantly, adding ink to the block alters the wood's texture and hardness, making it respond somewhat differently to the knife afterwards unless it is given time ot dry and "cure" again. But the first proofing is maybe my favorite part of the whole process. 

It is this moment when you get to finally see all these dark areas you have been visualizing in your head this whole time come to life. It is also the first time you really see how much the natural woodgrain is going to stand out or not.

Here is the first inking of the block together with the first proof.

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The next step is to step back and just spend some time looking at the first proof from different distances and meditate on it, then go back in and gingerly carve out the vague areas without taking out any integral portions of  the composition. In this piece I realized after the first proof that I had to lighten up the foliage (crowberries, and tundra willow) with more very fine texture and there were a couple places inthe Pika's fur that needed some clarity. Very important not to do too much and know when to stop!

Usually this goes pretty quickly and the second proof can be pulled within a couple hours. Here is the finished block and the second proof. T

There are a very few details that I think I will go in and play with, but for all intents and purposes it is finished. 

So, obviously I love ravens. Talk to them when we are out on the trails. Ravens have the most amazing vocal range of any bird I know of, if you hear an odd sound in the woods and can't tell what it may be, chances are it is a raven. I have always worked mainly in ink and no subject seems as perfectly intended by nature to be represented by black ink on white paper as a raven against a snowy sky.

One of my most positively received and re-occuring images is the human skeleton within a raven designs. The story behind this idea is telling of my artistic process as a whole, no major peak of inspiration, I was just being lazy. 

I was moving into the shoulder on a project that wound up being almost a full suit on a good friend of mine. We had started at the left wrist with a band of rabbit and raven skulls with three birch trees growing up the forearm to a whole murder of ravens swooping around. I was getting bored with layering in all the ink to tattoo these ravens and was looking for a way to lighten up the design when the idea of putting human skeletons inside struck me. It would be visually arresting, and it would simplify the tattoo process immensely.

I drew up some designs, showed Jon and he loved them. We started inking the shoulder the next day. 

As it turns out, when I started to do woodcuts, the raven/skeleton concept lent itself just as readily to that medium as it had to tattoo. I was asked by the local alternative weekly, Anchorage Press, to desgin a print for their (2014?) Halloween cover and this was the result. Recently I got a wild hair about doing a whole series of raven/skeletons on seperate individual blocks so I could print them indepedently of each other or combine them in all sorts of compositions. So far I got 5 blocks into a planned 6 block series but have kinda given up on the 6th block. Five seems like enough. I think I will use them to print prayer flags, stay tuned. 

The original tattoo is still ongoing, the wearer lives in Ireland now, so we rarely get together for an ink session these days, but we still talk on the phone and plan out the next stage, almost a decade after we started.

Trapped by foul weather in the studio for a day. Had no projects on the bench so decided to pull an old sketch for a hike last summer out and see what I could make of it in a day. Worked very fast and loose, trying to make a composition that followed the grain of the wood but stayed true to the original perspective. Mostly done with a small chisel and a thin knife.

I think I may want to lighten up the reflections on the water in the foreground, but not sure if I really want to go back in a cut more out, sometimes you gotta know when to hold em.