Woodblock Printing

I've been doing some woodcarving this summer (on commission), and from that got inspired to carve out a board and do a woodblock on my own time, which I got quite carried away with. So I took the board out to the garden and brought out a drawing of mine to work from as well, and made a woodblock carving. I find there's a great energy in gardens, a lot of vitality, and it's a peaceful place to get in a relaxed state of mind. I find the amount of different patterns among different vegetation a challenge to piece together and sort out or abbreviate in a drawing or painting. I have been reading a book on Matisse and it mentions his affinity for and interest in patterns. So with that in mind, I made a set of twelve woodblock prints on various types of paper with acrylic paint and ink. The colored paper is from a set of grainy charcoal papers, and the bright white paper is 140lb watercolor paper. I experimented with combining the colors, layering them on top of each other, and getting different effects with the amount of medium and the residual medium on top of the different papers. I'm a fairly inexperienced print-maker, but it certainly made me think about color in a different way, laying it down all at once and relinquishing control. Here's a few of the results in no particular order. Enjoy.