Interview with Tugboat Printshop

posted by christina

Husband and wife team Valerie Lueth and Paul Roden run Tugboat Printshop out of their Pittsburgh home. Despite being in the middle of the crazy holiday craft show season, they kindly took some time to share their process with us. They used their latest print, entitled “Dreamboat”, to explain each step.

"Dreamboat", 13 x 18" Woodcut Print on Pale Pink Arturo Paper

“Dreamboat” is the last print (#22) in THE DEEP BLUE SEA Woodcut Series, and it’s available as of right now in their online shop. Behind the cut, you’ll see how they worked together on this print and others they’ve made, including the very impressive “America The Beautiful”.

A completed carved wood block.

Wood block for printing the red color of "Dreamboat".

Tell us a little bit about how the two of you collaborate. Who does what?

We spend a lot of time talking about what we want to make and why we want to make it. Then we sit down with blocks of wood (we usually work on 2-5 images at a time) and draw those ideas in pencil together, trading the blocks back and forth until we are both satisfied with the composition and placement.

Close up of the key block showing the depth of the cut.

Then we use sharpies of varying colors to sharply define what we will and won’t cut out, adding textures and value to the image. When the drawing is finished, we carve the blocks using all hand tools. If there are additional colors, after the first block is carved we create other blocks from the first block, and follow the same process of drawing and hand-carving.

Carving the block for the second color.

How long did it take you to produce your America the Beautiful print? How much of that was carving time?

We had done a lot of research into American History and wanted to really get a kind of accurate description of positive pioneering in the image. So we guess that first part took somewhere around 500 hours. 

Finished "America the Beautiful" print. Click to view larger.

The black and white (or ‘key’) block, we drew and carved in a whirlwind three weeks time from about December 28th to January 16th. We were literally working in shifts, 12-16 hours each, sitting next to each other and drawing on the same block. Then each of the color blocks took something like a week or so to draw in, and a week or so to cut out, but we weren’t working as around the clock on those parts. In a solid 40+ hour week from each of us, we are able to print 30-50 copies of “America the Beautiful”.

The red block in progress.

You’ve done two series of prints, Woodland Creatures and The Deep Blue Sea. Have you thought about what might be next?

Absolutely! We always have a few ideas in the chute. One of those is the ‘Life of Leisure’ series, which will basically depict kind of wholesome, social pasttimes in nature. A precursor to this series is our ‘Picnic Party’ piece, although we envision the suite being a little bit different.

Thanks to Paul and Valerie for taking the time to answer our questions!