It begins with a coot

So here we are in the first day of a new cycle. Several new cycles, in fact. Here in Salida the winter solstice occurred just ten hours ago, and it's time to set things in motion for the year ahead.

But, hm. I have a bit of unfinished business from the previous cycle. This silly ol' coot linocut.

When we last left our chubby buddy, he had just received his red eye and forehead shield, some shadows and some green reflections in which to swim.

A day or two later he got his final application of dark and looked like a full-fledged adult bird. By golly.

And now indecision has crept in. The inspiration for this image comes from a blurry photo I took some time ago. In it, the green reflections are rich, dark, and pine-y. So I tried that.

Hm. Not quite what I hoped. The dark reflection seems to compete too much with the bird. Not to worry... if you look at the right-hand edge of the darker print you'll see that it's torn. The tear happened early on, so this particular one has been a "tester" throughout the entire process. I only pulled this one dark version, and all the rest of the prints still look like the one above it.

But I've been stalled here for a couple of days. I think the darker green is too dark, but I have this nagging feeling that the green reflection is just too bright and flat. I think I'm going to try a blend that has a little more oomph at the top edge of the image and lightens towards the bottom. I did aim to do that with the dark green test, but the gradient wasn't pronounced enough, I don't think. I have another "tester" print in reserve, so I'll see what I can come up with.

What do you think?