Slow crawl to the linocut finish

The little leaf linocut continues its slow evolution. I'm happy with the way the yellows and greens are working together, but I'm struggling to find just the right value balance. I'd like enough contrast to give the image good depth, but I don't want to resort to too much drama.

After the last stage I carved a few more twig and stem shapes into the block and then rolled it up with a transparent gray. The aim was to deepen the contrast of the background without losing color.

Previous pass, #6, on the left. #7 on the right.

 Okay. Nice. I liked the twiggy bits. But it still seemed to want a little more dark. Just a little. I added a bit more pigment to the transparent gray and inked up the roller with a blend that left smudgy pigment only in the center of the brayer. Does that make sense? From left to right on the brayer I had straight transparent base, then transparent gray, then more transparent base. Instead of a hard-edged, brayer-wide rectangle of ink I had a diffuse band of gray in the middle of the brayer. I applied this in a curving diagonal across the block.

Pass #7 on the left. Pass #8 on the right.

I like it, but I still want a little more oomph in the lower right corner. (sigh) It's all very wet now, however, so it's going to have to wait a couple of days before I can try anything else..

But that's okay. I started drawing up another block today that will provide plenty of new challenges. I'm thinking pale, indistinct background and contrasty foreground... maybe blends going in opposite directions.... yeah... that's it... and then maybe....