George Dirolf

I am a painter, printmaker, and graphic artist.

My paintings range from plein-aire oils to larger scale studio work. Subjects are the landscape, snowplows, and trains. I often incorporate relief text or images into these paintings.

As a printmaker I work in relief prints: woodcuts, wood engravings, and linocuts. Images again derive from the landscape; birds, plants and insects round out my interests, a recent series of engravings are entitled “A Suite for St. Francis”.

I also work in large scale charcoal drawings on mylar, most of these begin with photographic resources I shoot while hiking in the Adirondacks, Catskills, Colorado, and California.

My wood engravings are a form of relief printmaking.  To start a wood engraving I draw an image on the end grain of a block constructed from hard wood; I use maple.  The surface is as smooth as glass when starting.  I coat the drawing with thin printing ink to see the cutting more easily.  I use a variety of well-honed engraving tools to cut the image.  Any area that is to remain white is cut away- leaving the printing surface raised- or in relief.  A very thin, even layer of ink is rolled onto the block, and the block is placed into the press, paper follows, and a print is made.  I print on a Golding proof press ca. 1890.

Woodcuts are also a form of relief printing- probably the oldest way to produce multiple images.  The image is drawn on the surface of a plank of old wood- the wood is cut away leaving the image as a raised surface, ink is rolled on and a sheet of paper is placed on top.  Pressure is applied to the back of the sheet of paper and a print is made.  I print all my woodcuts by hand-rubbing the back of the paper with a wooden spoon to make the print.