Linocut in Progress: Back to the daisies

'Tis the season when I find myself on the road about every ten days or so... not particularly conducive to building up momentum in the studio.

This past weekend I was in the southeastern corner of the state, Lamar, Colorado, for the annual convention of the Colorado Field Ornithologists. It was fun to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in a while, and of course to put a few bird linos into the hands of actual birders.

But yesterday it was back to work... HOORAY!

The first order of business was to adjust the yellow that I printed last week. It felt a wee bit too green, which wasn't a surprise since it was printed over the top of blues.

Here's the adjusted color next to the original. You can see the change was pretty subtle... color temperature, but not color value.

Here's a bigger version of the corrected yellow:

Daisies, reduction linocut, Step 4

Most of the flower centers will remain this color, but a couple of them are in shadow and a few have slightly different color around the edges. This looks like a job for Transparent Blue.

A rollup so pale....

This shot was taken at the end of the printing session. The remaining blue ink has been scraped into a pile, so it looks dark... but the block and the roller both have ink on them, so you can see how transparent the color really is. (Or not see it, as the case may be.)

Here's another side-by-side for this step:

And a larger version of the print at this stage:

Daisies, reduction linocut, Step 5

Lookin' good! The next step will remove more of the flower centers (particularly the ones in shadow) and then it's stems, leaves, and background. Might pull this one off in 10 steps. Maybe. Possibly. Could be. Or not.