Wood Engravers | Slightly Foxed

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Wood Engravers

Daisies

These cheerful daisies adorned the contents page of Slightly Foxed Issue 38, Summer 2013. Ian Stephens was born in North Buckinghamshire in 1940. He studied illustration and lettering at Northampton School of Art and started engraving immediately on leaving . . .

Under the Cherry Tree

Under the Cherry Tree

This woodcut by C. F. Tunnicliffe illustrated Slightly Foxed Editor Hazel’s article on The Cherry Tree

Heylor, Shetland

Heylor, Shetland

Robert Macfarlane delights in dialect and explores the landscape of language in Slightly Foxed Issue 49, accompanied by Claire Dalby’s woodcut of Heylor, Shetland.

Roman Wall

‘In clear and elegant prose he described how lanes and hedges, copses, farmsteads, fields and place names could tell the story of the past and explain the configuration of the present . . .'

Dashing Fox

Most Slightly Foxed readers, we suspect, have some irritating gaps on their bookshelves left by favourite titles lent and never returned. A personal bookplate is an elegant and practical way of solving the problem, and would make a very handsome present for a bookworm or provide an excellent incentive to do that sort-out of your own books that you’ve long had in mind. This fine fox by Sue Scullard is one of eight designs available.

Stac Lee

Mark Valentine explored the Isles and wild seas with Robert Atkinson in his article on Island Going in Slightly Foxed Issue 50, beautifully illustrated by Paul Kershaw’s woodcut of Stac Lee, home to part of the world's largest colony of northern gannet.

Strawberries

‘Strawberries, and only strawberries, could now be thought or spoken of. “The best fruit in England — every body’s favourite — always wholesome. — These the finest beds and finest sorts. — Delightful to gather for one's self — the only way of really enjoying them — delicious fruit — only too rich to be eaten much of — inferior to cherries — currants more refreshing — only objection to gathering strawberries the stooping — glaring sun . . .“’

Croquet

‘One blazing sunny afternoon he finds himself for some inexplicable reason playing a game of croquet. He is a poor player up against a very good one, but he takes this as a pretext to expound a philosophy in celebration of the loser. ‘It is only we who play badly who love the Game itself . . .

Otter

‘There’s something inspiring about the way he comes to write Tarka by a kind of deep immersion – plunging himself into the creature’s habits and habitats, crawling through spinneys and splashing through rivers to get an otter’s-eye view of the world . . .’

Peacock Garden

‘Swift knows about containment and spillage. It’s the basic dynamic of her garden. In summer the plants billow out over the clipped box hedges that mark the borders, and roses ramble profusely away from their arbours. In winter, with the disappearance of summer’s temporary improvisations, the straight lines of the garden are revealed, dark evergreen and brown.' Alexandra Harris wrote of the joy of reading Katherine Swift’s The Morville Hours in Issue 50, accompanied by Geri Waddington’s wonderful woodcut.

Farringdon Station

Farringdon Station

Before moving to Hoxton Square, the Foxed den was in Clerkenwell, and Farringdon was our local tube stop. This woodcut of the station by Sasa Marinkov was featured in Slightly Foxed Issue 13, in Spring 2007.

Ducks and Daffodils

Ducks and Daffodils

Today’s woodcut first appeared on the contents page of Slightly Foxed Issue 33 in Spring 2012. Rosalind Bliss is a landscape artist based in the UK. She learned the rudiments of wood engraving from her father, the painter and art conservationist Douglas Percy Bliss, but went on to train as mural painter at Edinburgh College of Art. Later in life she turned again to engraving, working as a book illustrator and designing bookplates. She lives in Derbyshire, and is still producing paintings, wood engravings and murals, which she paints on to folding screens.

A World of Shining Beauty

A World of Shining Beauty

‘His descriptions are precise in every line, shaded so cleverly that the whole ninety pages work on you like a painting by Seurat. The dabs of colour are pretty enough – but stand back and there lies an entire landscape . . .’ wrote Gee Williams in A World of Shining Beauty, an article on John Masefield’s 1966 memoir Grace before Ploughing from Slightly Foxed, Issue 33. While there may not be dabs of colour in this week's wood engraving, Peter Reddick has beautifully captured this rural landscape of rolling hills and spring meadows.

Snake’s head fritillary / fritillaria meleagris

Snake’s head fritillary / fritillaria meleagris

It seems that spring has finally sprung and the bluebells and crocuses are out in full bloom. We long to see some snake’s head fritillary out in Hoxton Square, but alas will have to make do with Yvonne Skargon’s wonderful wood engraving, taken from Slightly Foxed Issue 41, Spring 2014.

Salisbury Watermeadows

Salisbury Watermeadows

This woodcut by Howard Phipps, 'Salisbury Watermeadows' from Bemerton Rectory, home of the poet George Herbert, first appeared on the contents page of Slightly Foxed Issue 18 in Summer 2008, but more recently we made it available to readers as one of our bookplates.

Lobster

We love wood engravings and in the printed quarterly we have an occasional series to introduce the work of some of our favourite engravers. We'll be sharing a woodcut from our archive on the website each week, and hope you'll enjoy them.

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