Nope, it's no April Fools Day joke! I am finally going to give everyone a peek into what I've been doing for the last month. I'm sorry that I didn't do this as the piece was unfolding, but one of the things I am discovering in my experience of the not-quite-post-pandemic universe is that I still lack the capacity for multi-tasking that I used to enjoy.
Yes, that's right. I'm blaming it on the pandemic. It has nothing to do with an impending milestone birthday.
ANYWAY...
I hope to make up for my delayed process description by taking this back a step further than usual. Yes, indeed, I am showing you some preliminary sketches. What?
Wait, where was I? Right. Long-time readers will know that I rarely show preliminary sketches when describing the process of creating reduction linocuts. This is partly because I like the element of surprise as work unfolds in blog posts, but also partly because, well, I don't actually do too many preliminary sketches. Most of my compositions are cobbled together from a couple of different photographic resources. I usually create a line drawing based on those references, transfer it to the lino, and worry about working out the details as I go along.
Probably I could save myself hours of later agony if I would think things through more carefully before jumping in, but what would be the fun in that? Think of the boring blog posts! "This is what I decided ahead of time and this is what I did." Yawn.
But this project was different, because it was a request from a collector for a special occasion. The request included suggesting some elements of a location I've never visited, which made it tricky and required a couple of tries to get right, compositionally. So... pictured above are some of my early ideas. The drawings are rough, but it was an interesting exercise.
In the end we settled on a square format. (I love a square format.) There was a fair amount of carving in the first stage, because the design includes a zigzag of white from top to bottom, but for the first color pass I also cut a newsprint mask to contain the blue in a specific area of the block. Did I take a photo of that mask? No, of course not. (sigh) But there's the first pass, printed:
So we were off to the races. Most of this image is going to be a subtle dance of grays and tans... because the location is a beach and the inhabitants are piping plovers. So let's jump in with the first gray.
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| Step 2 rollout |
By golly, there are a lot of too-dark grays up there in the right corner. Some of that was on purpose because I knew I'd need them later, but that first dark was WAYYY too dark. I'm working with a new-to-me brand of transparent base, and discovering that I have to use a much lighter hand for some reason.
(Side trivia for US printmakers: Does anyone recognize from the tube the brand of black relief ink being used here? Yes, I do still have a small stash. And I'm still bitter.)
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| Step 2 printed |
Here's Step 2 printed, and already I think you can get some orientation for the overall composition. The square format is defined, and the location of the birds is clear. That odd blue swatch makes a little bit more sense... and hopefully will resolve more over time.
So let's see what's up with Step 3! Oh, look. More gray. This version has been warmed up a little bit with some sepia in a lot of transparent base.
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| Step 3 rollup, and hey! The full block revealed already! |
Here's Step 3 printed.
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| Step 3 printed |
It looks alarmingly dark already in this photo, but it's really not. Taking photos of subtle gray steps... well... the camera always wants to beef up the contrast.
But, hey... we're off to a good start so far. Don't let it lull you into a false sense of security. I know I didn't. Stay tuned!
i love seeing those sketches 😀 and what the milestone birthday?
ReplyDeleteIt's too alarming to think about, this birthday... :-/
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