Linocut in Progress: Short, short, looooonnnnng

Short, short, looonnnnggggg.... that's a reference to the carving time for the first three steps of the new linocut. Although it also sounds a bit like dance steps.

Step 1: The bright white bits of the birds were carved out first. Satisfying to have a suggestion of the subject already on paper. This first blue is very transparent, you can see here the proportion of pigment to transparent base.

And the result on the paper:

Step 2: The next bit of carving went even faster... I'm leaving a wee bit of this blue in the whites on the birds, and to suggest some reflection in the water below the top-most male.

The inking gave me a few minor fits, which look exaggerated here because I beefed up the contrast on a photo taken in poor light.

I was having trouble getting even tone on the outside edges so put one torn sheet of newsprint under the block on the outside edges only. (Torn because I expected it to leave a little mark and I didn't want it to be a hard straight line.) It's amazing how much difference a single sheet of newsprint can make in the amount of pressure. The newsprint did leave an edge, but since most of this will be covered I'm not too worried. And, as I mentioned, it looks much more exaggerated in the photo than it does in real life.

So those were the two "short, short" steps. The next pass involves MUCH carving of water... Will be a looonnngggggish time before I'm ready to print again.