Linocut in Progress: A quiet moment from home

 Alrighty, then. 

I know it's been ages since I posted anything here. Several reasons for that, but one of the biggest is that readership of blogs in this format has fallen way off and I'm uncertain what to do about it. Social media in general is such a minefield right now... especially with all of the horrors (for creators) of AI, and AI scraping of images. I'm about to go back to snail mail, honestly.

But until I decide what to do... there IS a narrative of a linocut in progress to share, although the path will be bumpy. I apparently didn't even think to take photos until I had already printed the second color pass. But even at this stage, I think North American readers will already be able to identify the subject. 

I was surprised one rainy day to look out my window and see a definitive answer to the question of what birds do when it's raining. I'm sure some seek cavities, and I've watched a few huddle from time to time under the roof of my wood shed... but on this day I found an obviously very damp chickadee huddled against the trunk of a tree.

The first big questions, before I even started, were whether or not I would suggest the actual rain and, if so, should it be represented by white or light gray lines? In the case of white or light gray lines they would need to be carved out NOW and held open for the duration of the process.

Hm. 

I looked at how Japanese printmakers handled rain... mostly with the thinnest of black or dark gray lines. 

Hm. 

Well. 

I decided not to decide, and to just plan to cut a completely separate block with which to print an overlay at the end. Would this come back and bite me in the butt? Maybe.

Reduction linocut in progress: Steps 1 and 2 printed

But here are the first two gray stages already printed, and we're moving on to Step 3. I wanted to warm up the tone a bit... this will be a balancing act that will challenge me the entire way through. Too warm? Too cool?

Step 3 rollup

Honestly, the rollup here looks rather pink... It's a problem I often struggle with when working with browns. Color temperature... what the heck.

Oh. And I suppose right off the bat I need to issue a disclaimer, apology, warning... about the quality of photography during this project. We've had a lot of gray days, and I've been working a lot in the evenings. All of which is to say that studio light is pretty awful right now, and attempts to use natural light through wintery windows is often compromised by dirty windows and weird shadows. I could wait until each stage is completely dry and then stick a print in the scanner... but who wants to wait for that? 

So we're stuck with substandard photography. Sorry.

Step 3 printed, accompanied by window dirt and shadows.

But hey... at least the brown doesn't look so pinkish on top of the gray. You knew that would happen, didn't you?

On to Step 4.

Step 4 rollup and mask

There are some lichen on the tree, which I'd like to suggest, so I mixed up a lichen-y blue green. I wanted to contain this color only in the foreground tree, so cut some newsprint masks and printed away. 

Step 4 printed

I thought this already seemed a bit dark, but I know from experience not to panic too much about value in these early stages, because once the actual dark bits start coming into play everything changes. So far, so good. Except for the photography.