Linocut in Progress: The Glarin' o' the Green

I continue to limp gamely forward in the progress of this current linocut. I've been a bit derailed by horribly slow drying times, which have caused me to change my approach and will no doubt insure later hair-pulling and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I had hoped to turn my attention to the bird, but one foiled attempt at spot-inking caused immediate retreat. More water work it is.

And there's plenty o' work to be done. That green needs taming for one thing. And some gradation to the water. Fine. Let's do that.

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 8

In what was probably the most straightforward color pass of the entire effort so far, a light-to-darkish blue blended roll went over the entire block, bird and all. The transparent blue went over that garish green and knocked in down a peg. Still too bright, but I'm not afraid. Not much, anyway.

I'm beginning to doubt that I got the shadow side of the bird dark enough, but addressing that problem will have to wait. If I do need to darken the value, well... it's going to take a second block, I think. I don't like to think it. But I do.

No way to know without continuing the rest of it. So here's a second light-to-darkish blue color pass with more gray added to the blues. This time I masked out the bird's face, which stripped some of the too-wet color off the prints. No problem. I thought it wasn't quite right, anyway.

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 9

The green is finally approaching what I need, and I think I can get it there with one more all-over blended blue pass. If I'm lucky that will be the end of the overall water and I'll just have the wave and the duck to deal with. But of course we're already at Step 9, so my hopes of finishing in another two passes have been dashed. Four, maybe? One overall water, one wave, one or two duck? There's a spot inking of pink that needs to happen on the bird's beak, but as I mentioned before, trying to do it when everything around it is still so wet is a disaster waiting to happen. Patience. I must practice patience. Not one of my best skills.

We're supposed to get a couple of days of good weather here, so I'm hoping to fling the studio windows open wide and get some drying action going. Cross your fingers! I would love to finish this piece before I have to go out of town AGAIN! Sheesh.