About
Hand-carved linocuts and woodcuts, made in Houston
The studio produces hand-carved linocut and woodcut prints, including small editions and affordable commissioned work.
Each image is carved into a single block and printed individually. Editions are limited by the life of the block or the scale and scope of the work.
The work focuses on the unique medium of relief printing and tailoring my style to each subject
About me
Shane Monds
I'm a Houston-based multi-discipline artist and Carved by Candlelight is my printmaking studio focused on hand-carved linocut and woodcut prints.
Every piece is carved by hand and printed by hand, one at a time.
I specialize in making custom prints of pets, homes, and meaningful places. I also have created a body of small edition works that embody my artistic influences. Each is designed to feel personal, affordable, and worth hanging for daily viewing.
Mission
To bring life to ideas through the unique medium of linocut and woodcut.
Each commission begins with something imagined. It could be a family pet, a house, or a special place. The work is shaped around how that idea wants to exist on the block.
Alongside commissions, I make small editions focused on the mark-making of the everyday: cartography, city landmarks, and architecture. In these works, craft is central. Line, pressure, and repetition carry the image, which emerges through accumulation rather than description.
Whether a piece exists as an edition or a single print, the goal is the same: to make something personal, affordable in the moving language of relief.
Influences and Style
My work is shaped by illustration and satire as much as by fine art traditions.
I’m influenced by editorial drawing and caricature (images that communicate quickly, clearly, and sometimes with humor). However, I'm also shaped by post-Impressionist painting and German Expressionist woodcuts, where form, pressure, and reduction carry emotional weight. The tension between those worlds is intentional.
Technically, I move between extremes. Some prints are carved almost entirely with micro-gouges and etching tools, built from thousands of small cuts to create depth and density that linoleum isn’t usually associated with. Other pieces lean into linocut’s natural strengths: bold shapes, hard edges, and graphic contrast.
I’m not committed to a single look. The subject dictates the language. A pet portrait might ask for precision and layered texture; an architectural piece might work better reduced to silhouette and structure. While my city landmarks and cartography pieces often blend the mark making techniques
What stays consistent is the emphasis on line, restraint, and decision. Every mark has to earn its place because once it’s cut, it’s permanent.
