The making of woodcut picture was a package process from drafting, woodcut graving, printing, chromatography, to hand painting
touch-up. First, a painter outlined the picture with ink marker and made a color effect draft and several monochromatic drafts. After that a
carving specialist pasted the painting backward onto the wood sheet to carve against the draft. Carving was the highly skilled part.
The line cut needed to be decisive yet smooth; sharp and clean-cut; delicate and even. Each monochromatic draft had its own carved color board. Then it was ready for printing. Laying the main wood block on the counter for the first or the main draft; then changed over one by one to print the monochromatic blocks for chromatograph printing, securing the block and the paper every time to achieve the highest accuracy. In the period of Republic of China, common pigments for yellow were made from Chinese Scholartree flower; ruby from perilla tree; and the dark smoke crust on the bottom of the cooking pot were used for black coloring. Later, imported magenta and
malachite green were also used to achieve brighter color contrast. Manually processed woodcut picture only employed printing to make semi-finished products. Crucial areas like human head, face and hands were still hand-painted, with great emphasis on the face, eyes and eyebrows. Some facial expressions painted by experienced artists were so vivid and true to life that the whole picture was enhanced with their magic touch.
