Linocut in Progress: A beak and some shadow

Yesterday was full of lovely affirmations of my work, but the glow doesn't last very long when there's work to be done. Back to the carving table and press I go!

An ochre-y (yes, that's absolutely a color, 'cause I said so) yellow needed to be applied to the bird's beak, so I employed one more pass with the inking mask .

Pelican linocut, Step... um...six, I think.

Sorry again about the poor photo quality. The good news is that the season is changing, the bad news is that it means my semi-consistent light source is also changing. I need to find a new place to pin up work in progress.

It's nice to be able to print several small areas of color in a relatively short amount of time, but it's not very satisfying in the overall progression of the image. I have done a lot of carving! I want to see some results! Thankfully I received some with the next pass.

Pelican linocut, Step 7

Now we're getting somewhere. Suggestion of details in the beak, some more dimension in the bird's body, and some tonal variety in the water.

Now it's back to the carving table again, and I think I'll be there for a while. The water reflections are downright ridiculous and I'm finding it challenging to find the right balance of detail. Too much and I'm afraid it will get visually confusing, too little and it might seem too flat.