Linocut in Progress: Laughing gulls continue

Well... THAT week got away from me. I had a little "studio warming" party here yesterday and everything just sort of built to that end. But progress continues on the laughing gulls.

Laughing gull linocut: Step 10

Here our mirthful pair started to find themselves in a habitat. This pass was an ochre-to-brown blended roll. I'm struggling with some ink rejection here... a function, I think, of mis-judged drying times in the new space.

It's REALLY warm in here. The building has radiant in-floor heat and is kept at a constant temperature which exceeds that of my former home studio. (In fact, it exceeds the temperature of any place I've lived or worked EVER. I am a cheapskate when it comes to the thermostat.) In addition, my lovely studio window faces south, which in the High Rockies winter means acute passive solar gain.

I'm accustomed to things really slowing down once I get past 3 or 4 color passes and I wanted to move this piece along, so I did something I don't usually do. I added a little cobalt drier to my inks.

Bad move, I think. The next day everything was TOO dry.

Laughing gull linocut: Step 11

So. The blue ink that followed for the shadow contained a judicious amount of Setswell compound to loosen the ink and help even out the coverage. Better. But it took a LOT of spoon-rubbing. And I had to keep my window open to keep myself from over-heating.

Laughing gull linocut: Step 12

Hm. Not too sure about this yellow. It makes the shadow blue look REALLY blue. But most of it will get covered up in subsequent passes, so I'm hopeful that it will all work out. Experiment and learning is the name of the game, after all... especially when trying to understand a new work space!