Linocut in Progress: Finishing the goldeneye

Okay, then... let's try to find some sort of resolution for this piece, shall we? 

Of course there must be more chaos first. 

The male goldeneye is a wonder of bold, graphic, black and white plumage. Which is why I needed to stop and make the head green.

I assure you, this makes perfect sense. Well, maybe not perfect. But some sense, certainly. Because of course there is some light shining in this world of ochre and brown water, and when it does it will create a patch of sort of iridescent green in the dark feathers of the bird's head. So: Green.

Reduction linocut in progress: Step 11 rollup

The roll-up looked alarmingly green, but remember it's printing over a mid-tone ochre (excuse me... I've been told I should call it caramel) color, so it will lose some of its green-ness. Like this:

Step 11 printed

Yep. This all looks like a chaotic mess right now. Time to try a bit of unifying... um.. brown... to bring it all together and help me see what needs to happen next.

Step 12 rollup

And it does help. I think the water is 95% finished now, so most of that material will come out of the block. However, there is the little problem of the bird's eye and the reflections of the eye needing to be more yellow. 

Step 12 printed

Here was an opportunity to make the concept of "spot inking" quite literal. Little spotty masks and some brighter yellow added... let's call this Step 12.5:

Step 12.5 printed

Okay. I think that will do for the yellow. Let's focus on these last dark bits to bring it all together.

Step 13 rollup

Some not-quite-darkest shapes need to go in the water, and I want to get another bit of subtle tone in the bird, so I rolled up this not-quite-black.

Step 13 printed

Ooph. This is a super-contrasty photo, so it hardly seems like there's room to add one more dark, but there is, and it must be done! The bird and its reflection get the only ink application here. You might notice that I didn't carve away the rest of the block. The prints were dry enough that the remaining un-inked areas weren't going to cause any problems, so I just left them. 

Step 14 rollup

Finished! And here's a proper scan that gives you a better idea of the value balance than the previous in-progress photos. It took me a silly amount of time to settle on a title, but I got there eventually.

"Spot of Gold"
reduction linocut, edition of 20
©Sherrie York

A larger image can be seen on my website... and the first print of the edition is already winging its way to Ann Korologos Gallery in Colorado. If you find yourself in the neighborhood, stop by and give him a wave.