Painterly Prints of Colorado - Brad Teare

Brad Teare, Trinchera Sky, 8-block woodcut, 11" x 11"

Reprinted courtesy of American Artist magazine
By M. Stephen Doherty

March 2007

Utah artist Brad Teare uses a number of techniques to give his woodcut prints a fluid, organic quality that brings them closer in appearance to his plein air oil paintings. He created several in response to hillsides, streams, and vegetation on the Forbes Trinchera Ranch, in Colorado.

Because woodcut prints are generated from block of wood that have been carved, covered with stiff ink, and pressed against sheets of white paper, they tend to have a hard, linear appearance. The contrast between the solid dark lines and bright white paper lacks any of the subtle blending of colors associated with painting. Brad Teare found that to be the case when he worked in New York City and made his living creating prints for magazine and book illustrations. Even when he carved and printed separate blocks, each with a different color ink, the final black “key” plate he printed over the colors defined each shape with a hard outline. 

Brad Teare, Mountain Stream, Oil, 24" x 24"

All of that changed when Teare moved to Utah, took up plein air painting in oil, and studied the techniques of master printers who achieved a more painterly look in their relief prints. “In some cases I used my oil paintings as studies for the prints, but even when there wasn’t a direct correspondence between the two there was an exchange of visual information about the landscape,” he explains. “Painting became more a means of studying and understanding the subject than a process of defining specific images that could be converted to prints.”

That process of using painted and drawn images to inform Teare’s woodcut prints became even more important during the week he spent at the Forbes Trinchera Ranch, in Colorado, last summer. “A lot of things came together for me during the residency,” he explains. “I had come to an impasse and couldn’t move beyond loose, direct, alla-prima painting on location. My prints were getting more refined in the way I carved the blocks and printed them with transparent inks, yet my oils remained thick and gestured. Having the ability to spend a solid week of uninterrupted time thinking about my work, carefully developing drawings and paintings, and considering the direction of my art was enormously beneficial. I’m excited about the new paintings and prints I’ve done since getting back to my studio, where I’ve had a chance to follow through with some of the ideas I came up with.”

Brad Teare, Mountain Descent, 8-block woodcut, 12" x 11"

After his return to Utah, Teare worked on oil paintings using a glazing technique, and he carved blocks of wood to publish  four editions of prints. “When I first started making prints I had to make detailed drawings to guide me in composing the images and carving the blocks, but now I have enough experience to be able to visualize the prints and draw the compositions directly on the key blocks,” he describes, referring to the one carved block that is used in registering all the other blocks.

There are a number of different ways to create relief prints with blocks of wood or linoleum. The simplest is to have one key block that defines the entire linear image and several other blocks that simply lay down shapes of color. In most cases, the colored shapes are printed first and then the key block—usually prepared with black ink—superimposes the lines of the image over those shapes. An alternative would be to print the black image first and then the colored shapes so the dark lines of the key plate become softer and less clearly defined.

Brad Teare, After the Rain, 7-block woodcut, 11.5" x 11"

Many artists create what are called reduction prints by printing the entire sequence of shapes and colors from one block of wood that is carved after each printing. The colors are printed from the lightest to the darkest as the block is reduced by the successive carvings. Each time a shape is carved into the block, the previous light colors will be preserved because the darker ink will only print from the raised areas still remaining on the block. The risk of this process is that artists have to print the entire edition of prints all at once because they can not go back and reprint from a block that has been reduced by successive carvings.

Teare uses a combination of techniques to realize his intentions. For example, he often carves a detailed key block, covers it with a dark-colored ink, prints the image on paper, and then immediately transfers the ink on the paper to another block of wood. By offsetting the dark ink, he can transfer the image onto several blocks that can each be carved to print  specific colors in perfect registration. “Using this ‘lost-key’ method, I may end up never printing that initial key plate after it has been used to register all the blocks I need for the edition,” the artist explains. “Or I may carve it up and use it only to print the darkest shadow areas of the landscape. The point of the process is to avoid a lot of continuous dark lines that might work against the painterly look of the final print.”

Brad Teare, Sunlit Road, Oil, 12" x 24" Collection Brent and Amy Felix

The type of wood used for the plates and the metal gouges and burins used to dig away the negative areas that are not meant to print play important roles in establishing detail in woodblock prints. Teare uses basswood from the linden tree—“the king of block-printing woods,” he declares—because it is relatively soft and has a tight grain. Other woods are either too hard to carve into or they are too soft or too knotted to allow the artist to carve both with and against the grain. “I hold the blocks of wood in my lap and grip the gouges as one would an engraving tool,” Teare says. “I started out doing wood engravings and find it more comfortable to rest the handle of the gouge against the palm of my hand and guide the tip with my fingers. I start with tools that carve out large chunks of wood and progress to ones that carve thin lines or small divots. I like using those smaller gouges to carve dots and dashes because they convey a greater sense of realism in the final prints.”

Teare often mixes Daniel Smith transparent ink base with his oil-based block-printing inks so that each color remains transparent and luminous after being printed from a carved block. Conversely, he will add white to create a scumbling effect. After all the plates have been printed (which could mean as many as 12 different carved blocks, the brightest color being used to print a solid line around the image), Teare embosses the edges so they look as if they were pulled from metal intaglio plates. “I just like the look of the embossed edge,” Teare admits. “It’s not really necessary, but I prefer to finish the prints with that extra enhancement.”

Teare usually prints the woodblocks on buff Arches cover stock because it is a sturdy paper that holds up well as the ink from a dozen plates piles up on the surface. “Japanese woodcut artists use a thin rice paper one can see through, but they use very thin, water-based inks that are absorbed differently than the oil-based inks I use,” the artist explains.

Teare and his wife, Debra, also an artist, work together on printing the complete editions of the woodcuts. “Printing is a tedious and time-consuming process because the registration of each successive block must be as accurate as possible,” Teare says. “Each color is printed separately, the ink has to dry thoroughly before subsequent layers can be applied, and it is often hard to determine the appropriate color needed for each block until Deb and I look at the way each layer we’ve printed has dried. We have to imagine what will happen as each separate layer of transparent ink goes on top of the ones already printed and how those that follow will change the ultimate appearance of the print. Sometimes I have to carve additional blocks if the print isn’t turning out the way I expected.”

Brad Teare, After the Storm, oil, 18" x 24"

The uncertainty of this sequential layering of isolated colors is part of what makes printmaking exciting and so different from the direct application of paints. “There is something unique about the process of breaking down an image into separate shapes of color and seeing what happens when I print one on top of another,” Teare says. “The finished print is not anything I could achieve if I were painting with oil or acrylic, and I really like that the medium imposes its own qualities on the finished image.”

Another aspect of Teare’s prints that influences the look and feel of the images is the format he often uses— many of his prints are nearly square. “Gustave Baumann, one of the best-known American woodcut artists, often used the square format surrounded by a pattern of dots, but that’s not really what motivated me to work within the compositional structure," Teare admits. "Rather, it really sets up a way of thinking about the arrangement of shapes that is decidely intimate and modern."

Brad Teare, Wellesville Barn, oil, 16" x 20" Collection Brent and Amy Felix

Most of Teare's prints are of Western landscapes, but he is considering doing a new suite of prints based on the landscape of other regions of the country. "A lot of my paintings and prints are of vegetation and land formations one can only find in the West, but I've also been developing images of streams, fields, rocks, and flowers that could really be anywhere in the country," he says. "Ultimately, the aim is to find a subject and manner of expression that is uniquely mine. I think all artists are searching for their own voice, and the woodcut prints allow me to say something about natural forms in my own way."

Return to Brad Teare's Woodblocks

Brad Teare, Summer Light, 8-block woodcut, 11" x 12"