🇮🇳 India Wooden Fabric Printing Block 🇮🇳 Vintage 🇮🇳 Shesham Wood - Antique

Antique fabric printing block from India that belonged to our grandparents. This piece is 12" x 6" and made of a heavy Shesham wood. What is block printing? Block printing refers to the printing technique of pressing and stamping fabric with carved wooden blocks filled with color. “Hand blocked” or “hand block printing” are other terms that refer to block printing. Hand-carved wooden blocks provide the cornerstone of the block printing process. Block carving is tedious, and it demands an exceptional degree of craftsmanship. Wood carvers practice and teach the block carving craft over generations. Craftsmen trace the design onto a planed slice of Shesham Wood, which is the best wood for this kind of printmaking, and chisel it 1/3-inch deep. The precision that a master block maker achieves with simple tools is extraordinary. These block printing tools may be simple, but they create something extraordinary. The resulting woodblocks are works of art in themselves! How many blocks does it take to create a print? Well, that depends on the design. Each color and each design element requires its own separate block. That’s right: each tiny element comes to life one color and one block at a time! You can try to estimate the number of blocks used by tallying the number of colors and design components. A simple design might require just three blocks, but a complex design might need up to 30 blocks! A woodblock usually ranges between 5–8 square inches.