Book Review: A Wood Engraver's Alphabet

There are plenty of alphabet books out there, ones that have cars, fruit, clothes, kids, toys and animals. However, this isn't your child's alphabet book. A Wood Engraver's Alphabet Book 2008 Porcupine's Quill, Inc. by G.. Brender a Brandis is a beautifully crafted art book comprised of 26 wood cuts of both familiar and rare flowers and plants.

In his introduction Mr. Brandis talks with a love for his craft and an almost intimate feeling about his subjects. He talks about his drawing process of drawing on paper and later transferring this to wood while other times drawing directly on "the highly polished wooden block (usually boxwood if available although the lady's mantle was done on a piece of holly wood)."

"Something mysterious happens in my brain when I actually begin engraving. Throughout the drawing process I make dark lines on white paper or onto the blond wood, but the minute I pick up a graver or burin to start incising lines into the block I am thinking in terms of white line in a black field since what ever bits of the block's surface I lower by cutting will not catch any ink... I have never understood how I do this reversal of black and white- it just came to me from the first engraving I did..."

Read the rest of the review at Associated Content



Thank you to Mini Book Expo for providing me this book. Read my other reviews at Associated Content
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