Linocut in Progress: Slowly

Of all the headaches associated with this, the weirdest year ever, the one that has been depriving me of the most sleep (lately) is the ongoing quest for a new (to me) car. My current ride is 23 years old... going on 24. While it was never a practical vehicle for me in terms of cargo space (it's a sedan... not convenient for hauling around art), it has been completely reliable. The engine still wants to go, but after 200,000 miles everything else is wearing out. 

I started looking for a replacement in February, but then of course everything shut down for a couple of months. When I started looking again in May I found few vehicles available and prices elevated (as they have become with just about everything). I can't tell you how many hours of my life have been lost to car hunting and research... online... driving around. There have been a couple of vehicles that looked promising but in the end were disappointing... with entire days lost to driving back and forth. 

The search has reached critical stage... and it's occupying most of my brain cells... so it's been really hard to find momentum in the studio. But I did get another color pass down this week, and I think there's just one... maybe two... more to go.

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 9 ink roll up

Everything about this piece has seemed strange. The color palette, the time it's taking, my distracted attention. After the last color pass I really started to worry that the whole thing was going to fall apart, so my goal for this step was to try to create a bit more cohesion. I mixed up two rather odd inks... a greeny-brown and a reddish-brown. The red-brown was used somewhat loosely across the birds, and the rest of the block was inked with the green-brown. Both colors were very transparent, so they reacted with all the colors printed below them.

Reduction linocut in progress: Step 9 printed

Oooookay..... That feels better. Hard to say if I will be able to resolve it all in one more color pass, but that's the goal!