It's another small relief print– only 5 x 7 inches. When I haven't printed for a couple of weeks I always feel tentative and not quite ready to jump in to something large and complex. The obvious solution is to print every day, but I'm not sure exactly when I might expect that blissful situation to present itself.
Since this first color is limited to a solitary chunk of sky I left the block uncarved and made a little stencil or mask from tracing paper. With the help of this handy technique I was able to ink only the area I wanted and make short work of printing the first color.
There are several reasons for masking this section first, but the two biggest for me are that 1) I've avoided adding to the overall thickness of ink layers on the paper and 2) the next color is yellow, which would not have been too happy about going on over blue.
Tomorrow's a big day... five more thumbnails to go for September, a second color to carve and print, and a visit from a fellow printmaker who's coming up from Colorado Springs to spend the afternoon. Could there BE a nicer day on the schedule? I don't think so.
Well, maybe if I also won the lottery. That would be nice, too. Then I could start that print-every-day thing. But three out of four ain't bad.
What paper are you using , it looks to have quite a cream tint to it in the photograph?
ReplyDeleteFunny, Stuart... in one iteration of this post I listed it, but apparently it has gotten away. The paper is Kitikata, so yes, quite creamy. Rather a nervous-making thing for me, but I'm tired of the inconsistency of Hosho.
ReplyDeleteGood idea with the stencil! It's nice to see all those skies hanging in a neat row....
ReplyDeleteGreat idea with the tracing paper! I'll have to remember it. I've also used bits of "scratch-foam", taped to the block with double-sided tape, to build up and print small areas of colour.
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