Linocut in progress: The final tern

Sunday morning of a holiday weekend... and I finally got to enjoy a little pajama-clad printing again! It used to be my regular habit to get up first thing in the morning and head to the studio to print before stopping for breakfast and getting on with the rest of the day. But the last few months have been unsettled, to say the least, so studio time has been strictly catch-as-catch-can.

Here's what the last few days caught:

Common tern linocut: Step 12

Eh... now that I look at it, this is a pretty lousy photo... but what happened at Step 12 was a gradated darkening of the water at the bottom of the image.

Step 13

This isn't a great shot, either... but Step 13 brought the darkest bits of the bird into focus. Believe it or not, it took a couple tries to get this dark right. I tried a straightforward black and it was just too harsh. This is a very dark gray with a fair chunk of transparent base in it.

Step 14: Finished! I think.

It took a couple of tries to get the green I wanted in this last step, too. Geez... it's the little things that trip me up sometimes!

In the end it's a deceptively simple image– Just a white bird against sky and water. But for me it was a new palette and an attempt to reflect an unfamiliar atmosphere. I feel some aspects of the piece are successful and others less so... but I've definitely learned a thing or two that will help me (I hope) tackle additional seabird subjects.

But now it's time to get out of my PJs and (ahem) tern my attention preparations for the busy week ahead. I'll be delivering new work to Abend Gallery in Denver, to The Wildlife Experience museum in Parker for the upcoming exhibition The Wildlife Experience in Art, and then it's off to Wisconsin for Birds in Art! Why, my schedule will be a veritable Art Tern-ado. (Not to be confused with a Sharknado, which is something else entirely. I can't explain it. You'll just have to Google it.)