Duck linocut demo, continued

Alrighty then! As hoped, I squeezed out a little time in the schedule to get the next two color passes done on the small duck linocut that will serve as a demonstration piece at Birds in Art's Artists in Action event on September 8. (About a week-and-a-half away!)

A bit more carving and a second gradated blue pass was applied over the previous.

 Most of the background came out after that and a gray-brown gave the duck more form.

I'm not at all certain I like the half-frame around the top. It seemed interesting in my sketch to have the foreground water flowing out from the around the sides of the border, but in execution I think it's a bit too contrasty or something. Or maybe the ripples shouldn't have extended as high into the background as they do.

OR maybe I'm just obsessing prematurely. There's still one more dark to go and I don't intend to apply it to the border... it could be that everything sorts itself out with the last color. Or not. I might try going back in with a lighter color on the border only...

But none of that will be decided until after the demo on the 8th, at which time I'll do the carving for that last dark and hopefully get all the edition printed.

In the meantime, I will be back to the gull later this week!