Linocut in Progress: Blooming ridiculous!

It turned out that slower drying times weren't much of a problem in the last week, since I found myself out of the studio as much as in. Bird artists gotta go hang out with birds sometimes, and I was lucky enough to be involved in nest surveys on a couple of coastal islands. Any action that involves boats, birds, and islands has the potential to turn into an adventure, so many of my out-of-studio days ran longer than expected.

But that's a whole other story. Back on the mainland things have started to take on a familiar routine. You remember... it's the one in which a certain printmaker keeps saying, "I think I need another intermediate color pass."

But first! I was thankful that I had saved the cut-away portions of the masks used on the last two color passes, because I was getting too much green influence in the centers of the flower petals. I wanted a little bit of non-purple color there in order to give the blooms a relationship with their background, but it was getting too intense.

Here's a closer look at the "inside out" masks. Sort of like using the donut holes instead of the donuts? And at Step 9 (another blended roll) printed.

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 9

One more step (another blended roll) to finish off the subtle texture in the background.

Step 10

Okay. Upper background is finished and all that material removed. I want a few more darks in the leaves... but I dislike the amount of green in the bud cases and centers of the flowers. The next ink roll was a kind of ochre-to-blue green blend.

Step 11

Step 11 ?!?!?! How the heck did that happen? Even more importantly, how am I going to finally wrap this thing up? I am feeling acutely those six months away from the studio... like being wobbly on a bicycle when you haven't ridden for a long time. Or maybe it's more like trying remember vocabulary in a language you haven't used in a while. The knowledge is in there somewhere, but it's jumbled and the access is a bit clumsy.

Let me assure you that resolution of this piece did come.. but let's save that for another day. Until then, here's a picture of two chicks on an island.