Art: Goose Feathers & Spitzstickers

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The normal effect in a woodcut is a white line on a black ground. To make black show against white, the boxwood must be cut away on either side of the line, a delicate operation. Wood-engravers' tools are a series of little chisels and gouges known for the marks they make as scorper, square scorper, graver, tint tool, multiple tool (eschewed by severe wood cutters 'as giving a pretty effect too easily) and spitzsticker. An amateur of wood engravings should be able to tell from the marks they leave just which tool was used on every part of his print.

For a printing press, Woodcutter Leighton uses the back of an old teaspoon, worn so thin that she can feel through it, to rub the damp paper on the inked block. There are other methods. Woodcutter Howard Heath (see cut), well known in New York art marts for his flower prints, prefers a little rubber roller.