The relief pieces have been cut out with a jigsaw from thinner wood, and are being glued onto another sheet of plywood. This approach enables the artist to use the negative shapes as well as the positive ones - an economical approach that avoids reducing surrounding negative areas to carved out wood chips.

Kiggell in the process of gluing the pieces down. We can see the image taking shape.

Kiggell is using a “power gouge” to cut more lines.

Another view of cutting additional lines in the block.

After cutting the negative lines out of the woodblock, it’s time to take a proof  or preliminary print. It’s important that the block maintain an even dampness when inking, which is quite difficult when working with a large-sized block

Ralph demonstrates an excellent solution to achieve this. Incidentally it appears that the print has been pinned to the block, so it maintains its registration through several repeated dampenings and printings.

Here Ralph has laid down a vinyl sheet and is applying pressure with the ball-bearing baren (pictured below).

The use of the plastic backing sheet, helps to maintain the paper dampness while printing this enormous print. Normally when printing, one uses a wax or tracing paper backing sheet between the baren and the printing paper: the function is to improve lubrication thus making it easier to employ the baren.

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Looking at the proof.