Red squirrel - hand printed original wood engraving

An original wood engraving of a little red squirrel 'Little Red'. Engraved into a round block of Holly and printed onto 145gsm white Zerkall paper with oil-based black ink. This is a reduction wood engraving, meaning the wood is cut away and as each layer is printed and the next is engraved, printing from light to dark.

Signed on the front. This is a limited edition of 29 prints. Please note this print is unmounted and unframed.

Please note the darkness of the background varies slightly between prints. I have split it into three categories therefore:
Lighter background (prints 1-4)
Medium background (prints 5-11)
Darker background (prints 12-29

Paper size: 16 x 16cm
Print size: 10cm diameter (approx)

Wood engraving is a type of relief print, meaning the areas intended to stay white are carefull carved out with specialist tools known as 'gravers'. These are designed especially for wood engraving and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Wood engraving lends itself to fine detailed work and as a result the prints tend to be smaller than some other print mediums.

Holly is considered one of the premium woods for engraving due the dense nature of the fibres. The wooden block is first prepared by smoothing the end grain surface and dyeing it a darker colour so that the engraved lines can be seen more clearly.

This print started life as a pencil drawing based upon one of my own photographs of a local aquirrel. The drawing was then transferred to the prepared block. This provided a rough guide to follow during the engraving stage.

As prints are made individually by hand please expect slight variation in detail and colour density, which makes every print unique.