Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Linocut in Progress: Getting into the spring of things

Surprise! I've secretly started work on another floral reduction linocut. I'm sneaky that way.

After the crazy challenges of the Mertensia (chiming bells) piece, which in the end involved 16 color passes, I decided something a little simpler was in order. But then again I ALWAYS think that, and I'm always wrong.

But it was definitely satisfying to start work on an image that had a lot of definition to it in the first pass.

Daisies, reduction linocut, Step 1

Daisies! White flowers! Look how much material I got to remove from the block before I even printed the first color! And even at this stage I feel pretty good about it. Nice shapes, satisfying randomness to the composition. I hope I can maintain that.

Daisies, reduction linocut, Step 2

Of course I want to show some depth in the image, but I don't want to get all crazy about it. Here's a second blue, which will hopefully throw some of the flower heads into shadow when the whole thing is done.

And now the first scary thing: Printing yellow over blue without getting green. For this step I was obliged to abandon my beloved transparency and create an opaque yellow. This is did by mixing yellow (and a touch of red) with a good quantity of white.

Daisies, reduction linocut, Step 3

Ta da! Mission accomplished. I'm not totally sold on this particular yellow, though. There's still some influence from the blue that I'd rather wasn't there. (I'd like it to be a wee bit more orange-y.) Ultimately the yellow will only appear in the flower centers, but I'd really like to avoid cutting a fussy mask for all that. I'll see what it looks like after it dries for a day or two and then maybe hit it with another layer.

1 comment:

  1. sneaky Sherrie :p and I think i've been following you here to know simple and you don't go together ;)

    ReplyDelete

Linocut in Progress: Color in a gray season

 Mud season came early to the midcoast this year. So. Much. Rain. Seemed like a great time to get started on a piece with a little more colo...