Linocut in Progress: So much blue and green!

Here on the coast of Maine it's been downright steamy for the last few days. The whole world seems green and blue and wet (not to mention hot), which has carried over into the studio, both literally and figuratively.

Step 4 ink roll out

Some of the fun of interpreting water in linocut is the excuse to use a lot of blended ink rolls. In this case the block I am working on is 12 x 12 inches in size, but my brayers and rollers jump in length from 8 to 18 inches. I haven't wanted to break out the big roller, so I've taken advantage of the natural division in the upper third of my composition to do a little faking. The 8" blended roll covers the bottom of the block, and a small 4" brayer takes care of the top.

Just as a reminder, here's a shot of steps 3 and 4 side-by-side.

Reduction linocut in progress, steps 3 and 4

And here's Step 4 all by itself.

Linocut in progress, Step 4

I was feeling pretty good about the water at this point... but the background foliage needs some more contrast, so of course that's going to have to make its way into the reflections. Another green-to-blue blended roll? Yippee.

Linocut in progress, Step 5

I think the water is just about finished except for the reflection of the birds, which will need to be toned down and warmed up. Well, maybe it's almost finished. You know me.

But here's the crazy part. I think I'm going to be able to wrap this whole edition up in under 10 color passes. What?!?!? That almost never happens, no matter how hard I try.

Of course just because I think this will be finished in a few more color passes doesn't mean it will be done soon. Why not? Because the day after tomorrow I'm off to Hog Island Audubon Camp and two weeks of workshop instruction.

Going to the island this year feels a little weird, since it now takes me only 20 minutes to get to the dock instead of the 20 hours that it sometimes took to get there from Colorado. But island magic is island magic no matter where on the mainland one starts from, so I'm looking forward to a little change in focus, even if the color palette stays much the same.