Woodcuts mood board

Pinterest finds that show the kind of woodcut / block-print elements we want on the website. Focused on improving the woodcuts in system/graphics/woodcuts/ (see ../../system/graphics/woodcuts/README), separate from the general moodboard. Descriptions are in the user's own words where given.

Images live in images/ next to this file, named wc-NN-short-slug.ext. Not committed for now (see .gitignore in this folder); we keep adding and decide later what to commit. This file is committed so the notes survive.

What to take from the set

1. Black plus one flat spot colour (red), offset from the black so it reads as a separate printed layer (01).
2. Form from line density, not outline (02): a set of parallel swelling strokes does the shading.
3. Warm speckled paper under the ink (02), as against the cool off-white of 01.
4. Solid black with cut-away white (03) as the counterpart to line-built forms (02). Uneven inking and pitted ink texture are part of the charm.
5. Silhouette as a floor (04): pure black shapes with hairline stems, cropped off the frame, work as a lighter, more graphic option for backgrounds and borders.
6. Fine engraving for the rigorous end (05): stipple, dashes and hatching on white, for botanical-plate content. Too clean on its own; it would need print texture added to match the rest.
7. A single warm colour works on its own (06), with mustard in place of black: solid shape, white cut-outs, rough edges. A candidate for a brand accent colour; check against colour.
8. Muted complementary pair (07): brick red and sage green, soft and slightly uneven, as an alternative to black plus one accent. A rough hand-cut border frames it like a plate, and the print-maker's mark sits in the corner.
9. Grainy ink texture (08): speckle in the solid black, from the paper showing through, is what makes a print feel hand-pulled. Worth adding to our woodcut SVGs (see also 03). Oak leaf and acorn is also a possible subject, for rootedness and slow growth.
10. Rough, feathered edges (09): ragged contours with a deep wine red, close to a crayon or loose-cut look. A warmer, richer red than in 01. Pairs with the single-colour approach in 06.
11. A consistent family of motifs (10): the same subject drawn several ways in one shared style. The stray gouge marks around the edge are a cheap way to suggest hand-carving in a vector.
12. One spot of detail in a field of black (11): keep most of the shape solid and put the fine cutting in a single place (here the acorn cup) to create a focal point. A sweeping arc composition with plenty of empty paper.
13. Drawing with white gaps (12): in a silhouette, thin white channels between shapes do the drawing instead of cut lines. A vertical strip works as a margin or divider.
14. Dots on a line (13): small solid round heads on a hairline stem, at varied sizes, with lots of space. A light and airy alternative to the heavy fruit and leaf blocks. Another small artist's mark in the corner, as in 07.
15. Single-ink colours beyond black (14, with 06 and 09): cobalt blue, mustard and oxblood each work alone on cream. Check against colour before adopting any. Note that 14 is AI-generated, so it is a colour/mood reference only.
16. Cropped all-over silhouette in a soft colour (15): branches running off every edge in muted ochre. Works as a background or section texture, and shows that the silhouette idea (04, 12, 13) is not limited to black. Possibly AI-assisted or digital in origin, so treat as mood only.
17. Big, bold shapes in saturated ultramarine (16): few large overlapping leaves, toothed edges, cropped off the frame. Cobalt/ultramarine blue now appears twice (14, 16), so it is worth taking seriously as an accent against colour.
18. Open, unclosed outline (17): a few swelling brush lines, with shapes left partly open so the eye completes them. The lightest option in the set. A small red artist's mark in the corner (as in 07, 13).
19. Paper grain as part of the image (18): coarse mottled paper under a very light drawing does a lot of the work. We could add a paper texture layer behind the woodcuts (see also 02, 07, 08).
20. Hairline fans against one dense form (19): a pinecone as a dense, detailed cluster against long, thin needles. Needs a woodcut reading (solid scales with white cuts) to join the carved set.
21. Bold scale pattern as black and white shapes (20): a repeated organic form (scales, seeds, petals) drawn as chunky black outlines with white highlights, going ragged where the form opens. Strongest candidate for a pinecone element.
22. One small metallic accent (21): a gold-leaf sun on a black print. One small spot of warm colour gives the whole image its focus.
23. A flock built from a few repeated birds (22): the same engraved swallow rotated and overlapped into a rising diagonal. A cheap way to make a flock from one good drawing, and our core motif.

(More to come as the set grows.)

Images

01. Pomegranates, black linocut with red overprint

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured; send it if you want it recorded).
• User's note: pomegranates; what I like is the black with the splashes of red in it.
• Noticing: two-colour print. A black key block carries all the line and detail, and a red block sits underneath, deliberately a little out of register so it peeks past the black outlines. The red is flat, with no tints. Paper is off-white with visible grain. Cuts are chunky and irregular (leaf veins, seed cells, short dash marks around the edges), and white is left uncut as highlight. Compare our current ../../system/graphics/woodcuts/elements/fruit-pomegranate.svg, which is single colour. This fits the "colour as an event" pattern in moodboard: red as a rare second colour on a monochrome base.

02. Apple, vertical-line engraving on speckled paper

• Source: https://fr.pinterest.com/pin/242912973648274043/ (posted as "cheo.engrave", labelled Ho Chi Minh).
• User's note: an apple in woodcut.
• Noticing: single black ink on a warm, speckled, recycled-looking paper. Form is built entirely from vertical lines that swell and pinch (beaded, broken strokes) instead of outlines or hatching: thick and dense at the base for shadow, thin and dotted toward the top for light. Leaves use the same trick with dashes running off a curved midrib. No fill, no outline, so the shape appears from line density alone. The wobbly, hand-torn red-brown border and the handwritten caption add to the printed-ephemera feel. Compare our ../../system/graphics/woodcuts/elements/fruit-apple.svg.

03. Apple, solid black block with white cuts

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured).
• User's note: this is also an apple.
• Noticing: the opposite approach to 02. The apple is a heavy solid black mass and the form comes from white gouge marks cut into it: long curved strokes that follow the roundness and radiate from the stem dip, thinning as they go. Ink coverage is uneven, with a pitted, speckled texture where the paper shows through, plus a couple of stray flecks and a small uncut nick. Leaves are black with white veins, and the stalk has chunky banded cuts. The silhouette is slightly lopsided and imperfect, on pure white paper with no border. This reads as a real, unretouched hand print rather than a clean digital one.

04. Hanging pomegranates, pure silhouette

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured).
• User's note: fruit hanging, contrast.
• Noticing: not strictly a woodcut (it looks brush-inked), but it is the strongest example of high contrast. Pure black shapes on cream with no interior detail at all: round fruit with tiny crown tips, narrow pointed leaves, and hairline branches. The fruit hang off thin twigs at different heights, and the composition runs off the edges of the frame, so it feels like a cropped branch rather than an isolated object. Weight contrast does the work: big solid fruit against hair-thin stems. Leaves are loose and slightly uneven, hand-made rather than geometric. Useful for a hanging-fruit or border motif, and as the simplest end of the range (silhouette, then solid with cuts in 03, then lines in 02, then colour in 01).

05. Lemons on a branch, fine-line engraving

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured).
• User's note: lemons.
• Noticing: botanical-plate engraving style, in thin dark grey-black line on white. The opposite end from the chunky cuts in 01 and 03. The fruit are left mostly white, with form shown by small stipple dots, tiny dashes and a fine edge line that thickens on the shadow side. Leaves are hatched with dense parallel lines either side of the midrib, and the branch is shaded with lines that follow its length. The composition is a diagonal sprig with two fruit overlapping the leaves, so there is depth without any background. It is very clean and even, so it looks more like a digital imitation of an engraving than a hand print; the texture of a real print is missing. Useful for the scientific-illustration end of the brand (crafted rigour, the "Fig." plates on the main moodboard).

06. Flower in mustard, single-colour cut-out

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured).
• User's note: flower, mustard.
• Noticing: a single flat mustard-orange on white, with no black at all. A solid shape with the details cut out as white: petals as radiating slots, a seed-head disc with a ring of cut-out cells, and leaves with a single curved white vein. The edges are slightly rough and uneven, so it feels cut by hand. It shows that the woodcut look works in a warm colour alone and does not need black as the key colour. The simple, bold, almost paper-cut-out shapes would work well at small sizes. A calendula or marigold-like flower.

07. Tulips, red and green vintage colour woodcut

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured).
• User's note: tulips, flower.
• Noticing: an early-20th-century style multi-block colour woodcut, signed and monogrammed in pencil on cream paper with age spots. Two muted inks only, a brick red for the flowers and a sage green for leaves, stems and the hand-cut frame. The tulips are drawn with fine, flowing white lines left in the red (petal folds that follow the form), while the leaves are broad, flat green shapes with one thin red vein, so detail and mass sit side by side. The colours are soft and a little uneven, with visible paper grain, and they are complementary without being loud. A single rough rectangular border in the green holds the image like a plate. This is a good model for a calm two-colour palette that is not black-based, and for a framed "plate" format. The signature and monogram show the print-maker's-mark convention (compare logo).

08. Oak leaves and acorns, grainy black print

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured).
• User's note: acorn.
• Noticing: a single black print on soft grey-white paper, and the most tactile of the set. The ink has a heavy sandy, speckled grain throughout, with the paper showing through the black in tiny dots, which makes even the solid areas feel printed. Oak leaves are black with a few thin white cut veins and lobed, slightly wobbly outlines. The two acorns carry a pattern of small cut cells on their cups. The twig has little knots and nodes, and ends in a rough cut. One clear subject centred on a lot of empty paper, with no border. Simple and small-scale, so it looks like a hand-pulled linocut or stamp. A good target for the texture we want in the SVGs, since our digital shapes tend to be too clean. Compare ../../system/graphics/woodcuts/elements/leaf-sprig.svg.

09. Pomegranates, deep red, rough-edged single colour

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured).
• User's note: none given (image only).
• Noticing: a single deep oxblood red on warm cream, with no black. One whole pomegranate and one cut in half, with leaves and stems trailing down the right side and running off the top and bottom edges. Every edge is ragged and crayon-like, as if the block was cut or inked loosely, so the shapes have fuzz and feathering instead of crisp lines. Detail is minimal: the cut fruit has a white rim and a few white dividing lines with seed clusters as dark masses, and the whole fruit has just one white highlight sweep. The colour is dark and rich, closer to wine than to the bright red in 01. The mood is loose, bold and painterly. It is a second pomegranate to set against our fruit-pomegranate.svg and against 01, and shows how much a single colour with a rough edge can carry.

10. Oak leaves and acorns, linocut-style set of four

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured). A watermarked stock-image preview (stock ID visible), so reference only, not for reuse.
• User's note: none given (image only).
• Noticing: four separate motifs on white in solid black: a single acorn, two oak leaves, and a pair of acorns with a leaf. Forms are solid black with white cut-out veins, speckles and cup scales. The single acorn has vertical cuts on the nut and a lighter highlight on the cap. The two single leaves have little stray cuts and slivers floating around the edges, as if the block was gouged out around the shape, which suggests the carving process. The pair of acorns is more polished, with crosshatched cups. Clean vector shapes, so the texture is imitated, not real. Useful as a set: it shows several related motifs drawn in one consistent style, which is how we would want our own library to behave. Pairs with 08, the same subject in a real hand print.

11. Acorn on a twig with an oak leaf, bold black

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured).
• User's note: acorn on a twig.
• Noticing: a single deep blue-black ink on cream paper, with a calm composition: one oak leaf, one acorn and a curved twig forming a sweeping arc, with lots of empty paper. Ink is solid and rich, with dry-roller streaks showing in the leaf, where the paper catches through. The leaf has only a few thin white vein cuts. The acorn nut is plain solid black, and the cup is a bright cut-out of small scale cells, so the only real detail sits in one spot. The twig has a knot and a bud at the end. The strong contrast between flat black mass and one small area of fine detail gives it focus and elegance. It is the most restrained of the acorn images (compare 08 and 10), with fewer cuts and more silhouette, and it overlaps in spirit with 04.

12. Hanging fruit and leaves, stencil silhouette

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured). Comes from a craft-shop stencil listing (shop name in the corner), so reference only, not for reuse.
• User's note: none given (image only).
• Noticing: a stencil, not a woodcut: charcoal-black shapes on white with narrow white gaps ("bridges") that keep the pieces joined. Two round fruit (apples or cherries) hang from twigs, each surrounded by a cluster of leafy shapes, stacked vertically in a column. There is no interior detail at all, and leaves have no veins. The charm is the thin white channels that separate the leaves, stems and fruit and so draw the whole thing, like a cut-paper or linocut reduction. It is a vertical, border-friendly composition that could run down a page edge or repeat as a strip. Related to 04 (silhouette), but it is chunkier, tighter and more graphic, with leaves overlapping the fruit.

13. Round flower heads on a branching stem, ink silhouette

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured).
• User's note: none given (image only).
• Noticing: black ink on warm greige paper, with a small artist's mark in the bottom-left corner. It is a brush or pen drawing rather than a carved print. A long, thin stem branches diagonally across the page, with round pom-pom flower heads (solid black, with a scalloped edge and a few tiny white flecks) at different sizes, and small narrow pointed leaves. Smaller buds on hairline stalks add rhythm. The flower heads are the only heavy masses; everything else is fine line, so the eye jumps from dot to dot along the stem. The composition is asymmetric and airy, with the stem running off the bottom-right edge. Compare with 04: same idea of heavy forms and hairline stems, but here the forms are small, round and repeated, so it reads as a pattern of dots along a line. A good starting point for a light "stem and dots" motif and a quiet divider.

14. Flowers in blue brush line (AI-generated)

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured). The corner watermark says "Meta AI", so this is an AI-generated image. Reference for colour and mood only; it is not a woodcut and not a real print.
• User's note: none given (image only).
• Noticing: a deep cobalt or indigo blue on cream paper with soft grain, drawn in loose, confident brush strokes. Five open tulip- or poppy-like flowers on long stems, drawn as outlines with a few dark filled shadow strokes inside each bloom, and long thin leaves. Strokes taper and break where the brush lifts, with dry-brush edges. There is no solid fill and no black, only one blue and a lot of open paper. The feel is Matisse-like or like blue-and-white ceramics and cyanotype. It is much looser and lighter than the carved prints, and the line is continuous and flowing, where a real cut would be chunkier and more interrupted. Interesting mainly as a third accent colour for single-ink prints, alongside mustard (06) and oxblood (09), and as a mood for a lighter, calmer, drawn feel.

15. Flowering branch in ochre, cropped silhouette

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured).
• User's note: none given (image only).
• Noticing: a single muted ochre or old-gold on off-white paper with fine grain. Flat silhouette shapes of a flowering branch (five-petal blooms, leaves, buds and forking stems), cropped tight so the branches run off every edge and read as an all-over pattern, not an object. Edges are soft and slightly wobbly, like a loose brush or a digital brush, with no cut marks and no interior detail. It is the same idea as 04, 12 and 13 (silhouette against paper), but in a soft golden colour that feels warm and quiet instead of stark. The tight crop with big open gaps would make a good page background or section texture. The colour is closer to antique gold than to the bright mustard in 06.

16. Leaves in ultramarine, cropped silhouette print

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured). Looks like a product shot of an art print or card (a drop shadow around the sheet on a grey background), so a commercial print.
• User's note: none given (image only).
• Noticing: a single saturated ultramarine blue on cream, with big overlapping heart-shaped leaves and thin forking stems, cropped so the plant runs off the edges. Edges are slightly toothed and irregular, which gives a cut-paper or block-print feel. Leaves overlap and merge into larger dark masses, so the drawing comes from the cream gaps between them, as in 12. Strong, flat, high-contrast, with no interior veins or detail. Bolder and more saturated than the soft ochre in 15 and the loose brush blue in 14. Same family as 04, 12, 13 and 15, but this one is the most confident: big shapes, few of them, and a colour that holds up from far away.

17. Lily stem, loose ink brush outline

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured).
• User's note: none given (image only).
• Noticing: a hand-drawn ink study on buff paper with small flecks, signed with a small red initial mark in the bottom-right corner. A single upright lily stem with open flowers at the top and alternating leaves down the stalk, drawn in a few quick brush outlines in dark blue-black. Lines swell and thin as the brush presses and lifts, and many leaves are left open, with only one side outlined, so the form is implied. No fill and no shading. It is not a woodcut, and it is the loosest and most spontaneous drawing in the set, like 14 (also outline-only, but this one is a real hand drawing in a single ink). The small red initials are the same print-maker's mark convention as 07 and 13, here in a contrasting red. Useful as a model for a minimal, calligraphic line and for leaving shapes unclosed.

18. Wildflowers, fine pen line on textured paper

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured). A crop from a larger clip-art or illustration pack ("PN…" text and part of another flower visible at the edge), so a commercial product preview, reference only.
• User's note: none given (image only).
• Noticing: black pen line on thick, cream, heavily textured watercolour-style paper. Three open flowers (pansy or flax-like, with a dark centre of radiating strokes), two buds and thin stems with grass-like leaves. The line is thin, scratchy and slightly broken, with a few quick dark dabs in the flower centres and bud tips as the only weight. The paper grain is the strongest thing in it: coarse, mottled and clearly visible, which makes a very simple drawing feel handmade. Not a woodcut, and the least bold of the set. It overlaps with 17 (open, light outline), but in fine pen instead of brush. The useful lesson is the paper: a coarse, off-white, visible grain as the ground for any of our prints.

19. Pinecone hanging from a pine twig, fine pen

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured).
• User's note: pinecone, hanging.
• Noticing: a photo of a pen drawing in dark brown-black ink on warm cream paper. A single cone hangs from a diagonal twig, with long, thin pine needles fanning out in loose bundles on both sides, a few drawn as dotted lines. Almost all of the weight sits in the cone, where overlapping scales are outlined with tiny shading marks, while the needles are hairline strokes and a lot of paper is left empty. It is a fine-line drawing, not a carved print, close in spirit to 05 and 18 (drawn line on paper), and the same "heavy form on a hairline stem" balance as 04 and 13. The needles' fan-and-taper shape would translate well to a woodcut as cut lines, and the cone's overlapping scales could be done as solid black with white cut edges, as in 10.

20. Pinecone, bold black and white linocut

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured).
• User's note: pinecone.
• Noticing: the woodcut reading of 19. A single cone, tilted, in strong black and white with no grey: each scale is drawn as a chunky shape with a thick black outline and a white highlight cut out of it, with the dark gaps between scales as solid black. The scales at the base are cleanly outlined, while those at the tip fall apart into ragged angular pieces, so the cone seems to open as it ascends. The edges are rough and slightly wobbly, with small flecks and uneven ink, so it looks like a real hand print, probably scanned at low resolution. No background and no border. It is the most graphic, high-contrast image of the set, and a direct answer to the weakness noted in 19: dense scales become bold black and white shapes.

21. Mountain range with a gold sun, linocut

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured).
• User's note: make it a mountain range element, with and without the sun, in black and in the cobalt blue of the tulips (14).
• Noticing: a real linocut on white paper. Three peaks carved in black with white gouge strokes for the snow faces and ridges, and short horizontal dashes below for the plain or water. A small gold-leaf disc for the sun is the only colour, sitting high and to the left, with a lot of empty sky. Ink is solid with a slightly rough edge. A direct improvement on our mountain-range.svg, and the gold sun is another example of "colour as an event". Made into system/graphics/prints/elements/mountain-range-linocut-*.

22. Flock of swallows, blue engraving

• Source: Pinterest (link not captured).
• User's note: none given (image only).
• Noticing: about eleven barn swallows in flight, in a single cobalt or ultramarine ink on pale grey. They are 19th-century style engravings, not linocuts: fine parallel hatching on the wings, stipple and short flicks on the breast, and white left for the throat and belly. The same few bird drawings seem to be repeated, rotated and overlapped into a loose diagonal flock rising to the upper right, so they read as one group moving together. This is the swallow, our main motif (swallow-flight.svg and the rest), done with far more life than our current drawn-in-code versions. It also ties to "groups moving together" on the main moodboard and to the cobalt blue in 14 and 16. Fine engraving line, so it suits large sizes; at small sizes it would fill in.