Sunday, November 24, 2013

Linocut in progress: Laughing gull end game. Or is it?

This computer-and-internet-only-at-the-studio thing is a little inconvenient! I fall behind on blog posts because at the end of a printing day I'm hungry and want to go home for supper. Like now. So don't expect insightful commentary– I have curry waiting.

Anyway. Where were we?

Laughing gull linocut: Step 13

Oh right. I followed the questionable yellow with an equally questionable green.

Laughing gull linocut: Step 14
And then a second, slightly less questionable but still not quite what I wanted green.

Laughing gull linocut: Step 15
Finally, a pass of transparent gray to push the bottoms of the plants down behind the rocks. Better.

Laughing gull linocut: Step 16
And then the final black in the birds. I really wanted to fuss with the greens some more, but at this point the ink is on too thick for me to have much success hand-rubbing. I could call this done.... except....

In my original design there's a triangle of blue in the upper left of the image. The sea! These birds are telling jokes on an island in the Gulf of Maine, after all. But I've been afraid of that corner and ignored it all this time. I have three or four known rejects in the edition... bad register or a tear in the paper... so I'll pull those out and mess around with the idea.

But until my courage returns I can't sit around twiddling my thumbs, so I started a new little piece today. My drying rack is happily full of laughing gulls and a seabird-to-be-named-later! Time for curry!


3 comments:

  1. You are on a printing tear, all right! Those laughing gulls are looking fine, and I hope the experimenting with the upper-lefthand corner produces something you are pleased with.

    Bill and Lucy are sending hellos and waving from Olympia, where I am for the holiday…. Talk to you when I get home!

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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...