Wood Engraving with Rebecca Gilbert

Wood engraving is a relief printmaking process that involves using engraving tools to carve into the end grain of dense wood, thus enabling the artist to create highly detailed images and tonally complex compositions. Used as the primary means for printing illustrations alongside of moveable type from the late eighteenth century through most of the nineteenth century, wood engraving is still a great way to incorporate imagery into letterpress cards, printed ephemera, artist books, broadsides, and of course to develop graphic stand-alone images, especially when there is a need to work small. 

In this three-hour workshop led by Rebecca Gilbert, students will be introduced to basic wood engraving tools, and use them to practice a range of mark-making strategies to produce a sampler. Then, students will have the opportunity to begin a block of their own design, applying those marks to make a tonally rich image. Students should come to the workshop prepared with a simple 2” x 2” drawing, design, photograph, or letterform to work from. Note that wood engraving is a very slow process, and participants might not be able to complete their second block. 

Related Exhibit

This workshop is held in tandem with the exhibit Made (By Hand) in the Midwest: The Contre Coup Press, 1979-2019, on view in Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center from August 18 to December 12, 2025.

About the Artist

Rebecca Gilbert is a Philadelphia-based artist whose work exemplifies a dedication to traditional printmaking processes. She earned her MFA in Printmaking & Book Arts from The University of the Arts, and her BFA from Marshall University. She has extensive experience teaching printmaking and book arts at numerous institutions, including Wells Book Arts Center, Maryland Institute College of Art, and University of the Arts where she also served as the Coordinator of Drawing & Print Media. She is an active member and serves on the board of The Wood Engravers’ Network, a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement and appreciation of wood engraving, its practice, and its history.

Gilbert’s prints can be found in numerous public collections, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, Ashmolean Museum, Gregynog Hall Library, Zuckerman Museum of Art, St. Bride Foundation, the Free Library of Philadelphia Print and Picture Collection, and Princeton University Library’s Graphic Arts Collection. She maintains an active exhibition record, and has extensively exhibited her work regionally, nationally and internationally, including in galleries and museums in New York, California, Spain, Canada, Korea, Estonia and England. Among Rebecca’s most recent awards are an Independence Foundation Fellowship to support her current project, A Dance of Death in Two Parts; a Victor Hammer Fellowship from Wells College in Aurora, New York; an Illuminate the Arts; a Creative Research and Innovation Grant to support a research trip to England to study the history and practice of wood engraving; and a Winterthur Artist/Maker Fellowship. 

Featured image: Rebecca Gilbert, The Street Barber [wood engraving]