Gordon Mortensen is one of the best-known reduction woodcut print artists in the U.S. He works from watercolor studies to understand the color dynamics needed for the woodcut. He uses up to sixty-four colors and takes as long as three months to create a woodblock image. Although the final outcome has a painterly feel, it is unmistakably a woodcut with rich layered colors and wood grain textures. ABOUTBorn near Arnegard, North Dakota in 1938, Mortensen received his BFA degree with Honors in 1964 from the Minneapolis School of Art, now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and he was enrolled in the graduate program at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul between 1969 and 1972. Originally a portrait painter, Mortensen almost entirely abandoned that media for reduction woodcutting, achieving the creative freedom he desired. Early in his printmaking career, he circulated his color woodcuts via exhibitions in the Midwest. His work reached a wider audience in 1976 when participated in the Brooklyn Museum National Print Exhibition and the following year he joined the Boston Printmakers. His listing of solo exhibitions is impressive and his work has been included in numerous competitions and exhibitions. His works are in many private, college, and corporate collections and are in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Walker Art Center, Carnegie Institute, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, DeCordova Museum, Wichita Falls Museum and the Worcester Art Museum. PROCESSOnly one woodblock is used. On it an image is drawn in India ink. Before the first color is printed, any areas that are to remain unprinted (white or the color of the paper) are cut away from the surface of the block. Then an oil base ink is used to print the first color on all of the sheets of paper that are to be used for the edition and proofs. After the first printing the block is again cut, removing any surface of the block that is to remain the first color in the finished print. After each subsequent color is printed, the block is cut, and this process continues until the print is finished and most of the surface of the block is cut away.