Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Gannet linocut: Last steps. Sort of.

I was feeling reasonably confident about the gannet linocut after the last pass... and then I discovered a rather large-ish mistake. I'm not going to point it out yet because I still need to come up with a solution for it. But I will. I hope.

Instead of freaking out entirely I decided to go ahead and finish the background. I rolled up this nice blue-to-greenish blend, with a second brayer employed to roll solid dark at the bottom of the block, since I don't own a 12"-wide roller. Yet.

Pretty, huh?
And heeerrrrreeee's the result. Wahoo! It was another one of those happy-to-be-a-printmaker moments.

Steps 10 and 11

There was only one more color to go and I was impatient to see what it would look like, so I threw caution to the wind and printed one.

Steps 11 and 12
Actually, I printed three: two on sheets that are already discards and one on a "good" print. I'm satisfied, but they are all really too wet to carry on, so I'll wait a day or two before finishing the edition. In the meantime I'll be working out a fix for the error section.


9 comments:

  1. Love the sea, so fluid. I'm searching for the 'mistake' but I guess it's one of those that only the artist will see.

    Ann

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  2. I really like this, Gannets are one of my favourite birds. I like the movement you have got in the birds and sea. I think I see your mistake and if its where I think it is, I'm intrigued as to how you are going to fix it.

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  3. this is gorgeous! the water has so much movement to it :D

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  4. :-) I have to say that every time I walk past these prints hanging on the drying rack, the water makes me smile. I'm really pleased at how it came out.

    The "fix" is a couple of days away. I finished printing the black on all the prints and now everything needs some time to dry. And I have to figure out what I'm going to do, too. I'm a little worried about it, but I have a couple of "discards" on which to experiment.

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  5. This one makes me think of the island where I grew up. I love these birds and I love this print. Yay!

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  6. I really like this one. But I'm still trying to figure out where you made your mistake.

    Tech question? Do you print with your paper damp?

    I use high rag paper and since I'm trained as an etcher I have been wetting the paper and then blotting. Then I print via rubbing etc..

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  7. This so reminds me of the Gannets I saw diving off of the coast of Wales. A stunning print!

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  8. Ooh... all these gannet-lovers! I've only had the opportunity to see them a few times, since I live so far from the sea. But once I was in a small crab boat while they were diving all around us. Spectacular!

    Doug... I print on dry paper, and I usually use pretty thin Japanese papers. I have printed by hand on Rives BFK... Nightmare! Too thick for hand rubbing. Rives lightweight is okay. I used to use Hosho, but lately it's been Awagami Kozo. Hope that helps!

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  9. Spectacular! The technical complexity of your process yields such bold yet serene prints. True mastery!

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Linocut in Progress: The Third Act

Time to wrap up this linocut ! And we are wrapping at warp speed (see what I did there?)... because there are deadlines. Exhibition deadline...