Woodcuts for Heart Art

One of the projects I'm working on for my graduate show is a book called What is Heart Art: What Makes Illustration Resonate? It was the subject of my first-year context paper, and I could never give up the idea. So, for the last year, I've been collecting quotes from all my Thursday interviews asking authors and illustrators what they think "Heart Art" is. I've got quite a few of these quotes now!
     But I also wanted my book to be illustrated. One hiccup. It would be rather presumptuous of me to include only MY work, as the whole idea of "Heart Art" is an amorphous one. So, I asked my classmates if they'd like to help out. Thankfully, they did in spades! So I have about 24 illustrations to accompany the quotes.
     Of course, I did have to do at least ONE illustration, and the cover and book design. For that, I decided to create some woodcuts. I love doing these, they're extremely meditative. But they also make an enormous mess. Oh well - such is art! Here are some images from my process. And before you say, "Hey, those are supposed to be backwards." IF I were going to do these as relief prints, they would indeed need to be background (sort-of - digital makes that unnecessary). However, I have something else in mind. You'll just have to check back to see them in color and finished!