Linocut in Progress: Out of the shadows and into the woods

Finally.

This piece is turning out to be quite the learning experience. Some of it is because I've been away from the press too long and some of it is because I haven't ever tried to do a snow scene WITH the press. I've gotten a wee bit carried away, just because I could. Witness Blue Pass #6:

Snow scene linocut: Step 6

With this step I FINALLY figured out what I should have been doing all along. Instead of a blended roll, I should have just stepped down the values as they came forward. Duh. At this stage I have removed all of the snow and shadow material in the upper third of the block. I could have done this two passes ago and saved myself a lot of agony, but I didn't. Unfortunately the shadows are now more solid-looking, less transparent and "glow-y" than I wanted, but I'm just going to have to go with it.

Next I removed all the shadow and snow material from the middle third of the block and inked only the lower third. Like this:

Because I don't want the dry upper portion of the block to pull up the existing ink layers on the prints, I cover that area with a newsprint mask before running it through the press. Like this:

And here's Blue Pass # 7. Also known as the overkill pass.

Snow scene linocut: Step 7

So now there's a subtle value change in the overall shadows from back to front. Which is what I thought I was doing all along, I was just making it harder on myself. As usual.

The temptation to stick one more blue in the foreground was strong, but I really needed to just stop and get on with the rest of the image. The entire thing needs to be done by the weekend and there are still at least 5 colors to go.

And just in case you're as sick of blue as I am... here's a gray. It's always a scary moment when I move away from the harmony of a single color and snap some values back in the other direction. But, hey... at least we're out of the shadows and into the trees.

Snow scene linocut: Step 8