Linocut in progress: Guillemot. (And a flashback - Why not?)

Guillemot linocut: Step 7

After a fair amount of hemming and hawing and a couple of false starts I applied this lighter tan color to the lino block with some spot inking. Because this color had to be applied all the way across the center, the mask was in two parts:

It made for slowing inking/printing, since I had to hold the top mask in place with one hand and roll the ink on the top half of the plate... then hold the bottom mask in place and ink the bottom half. A second block would have been easier... I'm going to do that one of these days, I swear.

The advantage to working in oil-based inks on dry paper is that halfway through pulling this tedious pass I was able to take time out and have a Skype video visit with my good friend, French artist Denis Clavreul, without worrying about paper or inks getting too dry.

A quick bit of math (which we had to calculate more than once because we just couldn't believe it) told us we've been friends for 23 years. Wayyyy longer than this two-and-a-half-hour color run.

We shared a couple of old photos that made us laugh... and which will never make their way into the public arena. But I think I can get away with sharing these... evidence of one glorious 36-hour period in which four friends from across the globe inhabited the same geographic location. Never before, these four in one place, and so far not again. Great times.

Me and artist chums Tsunehiko Kuwabara and Denis Clavreul,
Brière, France, 1999. Robin D'Arcy Shillcock behind the camera.

And this time it's Robin in front of the camera. Don't ask.