Calling it done...

For entirely too many weeks now I've been frustrated by unfinished projects, mostly contract illustration and writing jobs that have all bogged down simultaneously. So even though I had a new linoleum block drawn up and paper trimmed down and ready to go today, I just couldn't bring myself to start a new print. I had to finish this one first.

The previous ink layers were still a little tackier than I wanted, but I decided to dive in anyway.

As a reminder, the linocut was at this stage:

The diffuse band of darker pigment was working nicely, but I still wanted a bit more.

I (almost) always save the remains of the inks I mix at each stage of a print. Very often those scraps become the basis of subsequent color passes, and that was the case here. Monday's transparent gray went back on the inking table today, with a little more black and blue pigment added for this final pass.

Unfortunately this isn't a great shot– there's glare across the right-hand image– but you can see the blue-black in the lower right corner defining a few more twigs and adding more depth.

I thought that would be it, but I wasn't quite satisfied with the shape of that dark.

I decided I wanted the entire corner to push back more, not just the swatch below the largest leaves. So I inked the corner again and printed the final dark clear to the edge of the block on the right side.

This futzing and tweaking could go on forever, but I think I'm going to call this one done at last. Now all it needs is a title. Ummmm.....