Saturday, January 1, 2011

Carving out a great new year!

Happy New Year, everyone! Whew! We made it.

The DM and I surprised ourselves by spending some of New Year's Eve out on the town (such as it is). We enjoyed a fine meal with friends and then celebrated New York New Year down at the local pub. What's New York New Year, you ask? Well! Let me tell you! One finds a television airing the festivities in New York City "live," of course... a party in a time zone two hours later than we are. We can watch the ball drop, cheer loudly, drink a glass of champagne, kiss someone nearby and be home in bed by 10:30.

Yeah. We are party animals. Maybe next time we'll celebrate Australian New Year and get it all out of our system the morning before.

It turns out that I was saving my energy for the first day of 2011, although I didn't know it at the time. I woke intending to get two color passes made on the little linocut I drew up last week, but ended up working straight on through the day and getting FOUR. A new record, I think. Granted, it's a very small piece (6 x 6 inches). But still....

First color pass: A blend of blues with just some tiny bits of white carved away. Followed by much more carving.


Second color pass: A blend of darker blues. Already I'm feeling sorry that most of this color will get covered up in subsequent passes. I love this combo.


I was supposed to stop at this point, but I realized that I'd already done the longest bit of carving and it wouldn't take long to do the third color. So I did.


After which I realized there was still very little carving to do before the fourth color. Which I also did.


After which it was definitely time to stop. I was starting to get some wet ink rejection AND my fingers and wrists and neck were (are) sore. But OOOOO-Wheeeeee! What a way to start 2011!

As for tomorrow... well.... There is definitely part of me (P's "inner border collie" again) that's saying, "Oooohhh! Wouldn't it be cool to have the first print of the new year entirely done by January 2?" But there's another part that's saying, "Oooooh, where's the ibuprofen?" Tune in tomorrow to see which part wins!

4 comments:

  1. I was in southern AZ for the past 9 days for the holidays, but finally was able to catch up on my blog reading, and - wow - I really enjoyed reading about all these projects you have going on and seeing them in their various stages of completion.

    I don't have to wish you a productive 2011 - you are off to the races already in that regard :)!

    I hope you are staying warm over there; it only got to 8 degrees here in Durango today.

    Happy New Year!

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  2. Hi Sheree from a 30 degree Aussie Summer Day. Congrats on the great start to the year. I spent today in a figurative drawing class with a view to figurative sculpture during the rest of the week! Also I am going to take a leaf out of your book and have challenged myself to make ONE pot that I am happy with each week-end (my only creative time)My other resolution is to ONLY fire pots I am entirely happy with!!Thanks for the Inspiration have a great 2011.
    Annabel

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  3. Oh, Sonya! I think we started the New Year at 7 degrees here in town, and well below zero on the mountain. And did you guys have that WIND? Bleah.Productivity? You are the queen of it! Go, girl!

    Sounds like a great plan, Annabel! It's challenging to find a balance between letting ourselves experiment and just do the work and feeling like we have to produce something "good" because we have limited time. I'm rootin' for ya!

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Linocut in Progress: The Third Act

Time to wrap up this linocut ! And we are wrapping at warp speed (see what I did there?)... because there are deadlines. Exhibition deadline...