Linocut in Progress: The drama builds!

Okay, maybe not drama. But contrast! We're getting in to a bit more contrast and a lot more of me flying by the seat of my pants. 

I mean, look at this crazy color combo:

Reduction linocut in progress: Step 8

As you can see, I'm trying to keep cooler grays to the outer edges of the image, and to warm up the center.

Step 8 printed

There were two hiccups at this point. 1) I forgot to wipe the color out of the four little roundish shapes that will be periwinkles and 2) while I like the rusty color, when I came back to it the next day it seemed a bit too dark. 

I could maybe not solve both problems with the same step, but I could at least move them back in the right direction. 

Check out this crazy color combo:

Step 9 rollup

The dark looks like black in the photo, but it's more of a transparent dark gray made with sepia, prussian blue, and some transparent base. The peachy color looks good, but it won't print this light over the existing color unless I add some opaque white... and I don't want to do that. Let's see what happens.

Step 9 printed

Okay, that feels better. I think we're getting close now. Two more color passes? I still need to resolve the periwinkles, and I think they will require some spot inking to nudge them where I want them, colorwise. And there's at least one dark to go... probably it will involved some blended color again. I have to think about it.

Unfortunately there will be a bit of a suspenseful delay of progress now, as I am headed out to Massachusetts for a couple of days. A delightful gathering of my wildlife artist colleagues will be taking place at the Museum of American Bird Art on Wednesday, and I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone. Back to work on Friday!