Okay. At this point I was super aggravated with this linocut and ready to be finished. Plus... truth be told... there was a major exhibition jury deadline approaching and I could hear the beating of the drum. Let's just wrap this up, shall we?
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| Step... hm... 18? rollup |
I decided that I would spot ink one more dark in the birds, and then, hopefully, just one more dark overall and the piece would be finished. There's not a whole lot of material left on this block, so things will need to be resolved soon!
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| Step 18 printed |
The changes are so subtle here that probably no one will notice them except me. The camera certainly doesn't. For all the 80 zillion pixels (of COURSE that's the actual amount) involved these days, there are some things a digital camera just can't deal with well. Or at least it can't if I am the one doing the photography.
One more dark.
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| Step 19 rollup |
See what I mean? There isn't much left here to accept ink.
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| Aaaanddd.... Step 19 printed |
Okay! Finished.
I guess.
Maybe.
I dunno.
It's a funny thing, attempting to stretch outside one's comfort zone. I tried to do something different, and I did. But is it successful? I'm not sure. I can't tell. It's just... different. Some folks who have seen it like it a lot. Some, like me, are less certain. I suppose that's image-making for you... not everything appeals to everyone.
Or maybe it's not finished. Maybe I need to push things even further. Get a second block going and overprint some areas and see what happens. That could be interesting.
It could also take time, and right then time was not something I had. Deadline, remember? So I did the only thing I could be sure about in the moment: I put these prints aside and....
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| Something totally new. Step 1. |
I started something completely new, a little bit smaller (12 x 18 inches), and more within the creative comfort zone. At this point I had maybe three weeks to the deadline, and I had already spent two months on a piece that just confused me. Which is part of why I stopped making blog posts! The last thing I needed was more pressure. I'll get back to the other piece later, but right now.... focus! Deadline. Deadline. Deadline.
Hah! I heard that drumbeat loud and clear too, which is why I picked up my woodcut + linocut multiple block + deck-chairs-on-the-Titanic-emergency-reduction nemesis again and reworked in December. I then ran it through 14 color passes to finish before my April 6th jury deadline for ASMA.
ReplyDeleteGeez, the decisions we have to make when we have a deadline breathing down our necks... Right?
But, it really looks great, Sherrie! There's a patterning there too I really like, like there's music written in the reeds in the bottom third of your print. : )
I was trying to push myself too, ambition-wise. I don't know about you, but I just want to do something stupid-simple next... ;-)
^ — Holly
DeleteThanks, Holly! I was definitely going for something that emphasized this textural pattern, but I got myself in the weeds (see what I did there) and lost confidence in it. I'll get back to it... one of these days! ;-)
DeleteI'm so relieved to hear that you get in the weeds and lose confidence in a print too! I would wake up at 3am, worrying about how I was going to fix one of my stupid wood blocks where I carved the out wrong thing, then duplicated the same thing on two blocks and then had no idea how I got myself boxed into that rookie mess in the first place. Ugh! So glad it's salvaged and now over.
ReplyDeleteI questioned many of my life choices in the making of it. ; )