The first cut

Hanging on the gallery wall

      Not necessarily the deepest cut but I certainly stabbed myself once or twice and bled on the block as a beginner wood and lino cutter.
      The place is Teesside and the time is October 1966.
      This is my first ever woodcut carved into a plank of wood salvaged from the sands at the South Gare, right at the mouth of the River Tees, during that summer when we had an international football team.
      It depicts some derelict industrial buildings in Cleveland Hills and a browse through the old sketchbooks seems to indicate that it's a montage of two drawings in those sketchbooks.
      The woodcut measures 200mm x 580mm and was printed on the quaintly named Porridge Paper.