Linocut in Progress: Mistaking my way to the finish–or–Oh no! Not another learning experience!

Well.

This particular linocut is going to go down as the best example of what NOT to do that I've had in a long time.

Mostly it's a problem of rushing! I've got a huge show looming and I want to get this piece and one other finished by the beginning of June... two weeks away! So I've been working weird hours and poor light and not waiting long enough for things to dry and...

Well... look at what I mean.

Step 11 was fine. Another– darker– transparent gray over the entire block.

Step 11, transparent gray rollup

That should create the final dark in the foliage and the second-to-last dark in the bird, right?

Step 11, printed

It all seemed reasonable. It also didn't seem like I needed to take the time to cut away all of the foliage for the last step, since I could just mask out everything but the bird. I cut away some of the plants nearest the bird to keep the edges clean, rolled up a fairly opaque black, put the mask in place, and... @#$%.

Step 11 was still too wet and the mask stripped away the color from the print. Plus the black was just too harsh.. too much contrast with the foliage. The bird looked like a cutout pasted onto the scene.

I had two choices: Stop and wait for the Step 11 ink to dry more (the better solution).... OR carve everything out of the block except the bird and hope I could mix a black of the correct value to print (the faster solution). With all of the other material off the block I wouldn't need a mask, so it wouldn't strip the still-wet Step 11 ink.

Since I really, really, really wanted this print to be finished, I went for option 2 and carved away everything but the bird. A nice, semi-transparent, darker gray-black and it was ready to go.

Step 12 rollup.
I had better get this right, because there's no going back to tweak the foliage now!

Step 12 printed

It seemed pretty good, so I continued to print all those "testers" at the front of the queue. I pulled the registration tabs off each print as I went, convinced that this was the end. But then...

Hmmm.

You can't see it in the photo, but the red of bird's epaulette runs beyond the shape along the top edge. I had printed the shape a little larger than necessary to avoid making it too small and risking an uneven edge... the final black would cover it, right? Right.

Except that it doesn't, exactly. From a distance you can't see it, but up close there's the ghost of a red shape under the black and it disturbs me. (Sigh.) What to do?

I don't want to make the entire bird darker... I'll be back to the problem of too much contrast between the bird and leaves... and I don't have the leaves on the block anymore to make any corrections there! I decided that perhaps a small blended roll along the right side of the bird could be good... just enough to darken the side of the face and the area just above the epaulette and the edge of the wing. I carved a bit more into the bird to keep the shape interesting and...

Rejection... on so many levels.

Wet rejection. Some of the new ink clung to the print, but most of it did not. AND... some of the Step 12 ink peeled up off the print and stuck to the block instead. So. I saved myself zero time, plus I now have no fallback position for correcting the foliage because all that material is removed from the block.

AND... I don't have my testers available anymore because I already took the registration tabs off of them.

I will still get good prints, although the edition will be smaller than I wanted.

The moral of the story? Rushing is never a good idea.

Epilogue

I forced myself to wait a few days, and shifted my attention what I think will be the last new piece for the upcoming show at the Museum of American Bird Art. I hate waiting when something is so close to finished... and in fact looks finished except for some nit-picky problem that probably only I will ever notice. But you know I can't let it go... it has to be fixed.

To my great relief (printmaking pun not intended... or maybe it is), the prints were finally dry enough last night to put one more transparent gray into the bird.

Lucky Step 13. Finished... and who can tell the difference? Only me.

It's foggy and gray again today, so this natural-light photo is a bit questionable, but trust me. The problem of the bleeding red line is solved and there are a few more tiny details in the feathers. And it's FINISHED.Whew.

In the end I think the edition will only have 10 of the 20 prints I started with. Most of the rejects occurred in the first two steps of the process, when I had so much trouble with residual bleed from the yellow ink. 

But now I know a little bit more about a new brand of ink, I've discovered another printing pitfall to avoid, and I did manage to walk away from a too-wet print before I destroyed the entire edition. I also learned a nifty use for "mixing white" ink. 

So, yes. I guess this print qualifies as one of those (@#$%!) learning experiences. 

Even after 15-plus years of printmaking I've still got a lot to learn... so if you're new to the process, don't despair! As a friend said to me decades ago–when I was standing terrified at the top of a mountain with skis strapped to my feet–"If you're not falling down you're not trying hard enough." 

So off I go... back to the studio for more falling down... and getting back up again, of course! 

Linocut in Progress: Almost There, or Not

Oh! Finally I am in the studio without the huge distractions of out of town meetings or show installations or framing or deadlines. Well. Sort of. I have a HUGE deadline looming that involves all of those things: my solo exhibition at the Museum of American Bird Art in Massachusetts. But I do have (MUST have) a couple of weeks in which I am able to focus.

The morning after I returned from Chicago I marched straight downstairs into the studio, still in my pajamas, to take care of the small detail of the spot-inked red in the wing of the blackbird in the current linocut in progress.

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 9

This was surprisingly difficult, although it shouldn't have surprised me since I always struggle with reds. It's a good thing I have all those "tester" prints, since I used all of them trying to get this color right.

But I got it eventually, and went to work carving for what I hoped would be the last pass on the foliage. My plan was to roll a transparent gray once again over the entire block... darkening the bird and the plant in one go.

Transparent gray roll-up

And it worked! I now have three values of green in the image, but only used green ink once, on the first pass. And the bird has a mid-tone gray that will work great for the final black pass. Nifty trick, eh?

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 10

Except that it's not ready for the final black pass. The foliage really needs one more darker value or when the bird is finished it will look like it's just cut out and pasted on there. It won't be cohesive and there will be too much value contrast. (sigh) One more intermediate gray pass will be necessary... so two more color passes before the print is finished.

I'm still aiming to finish this week so I can get the next lino on the press right away. These will be the last two new pieces for the exhibition... and then... wheee! Framing. <wince>

Linocut in Progress: Second Green, in absentia

Through the magic of technology I'm going to catch you up with what happened last week in Maine before I came to Chicago, the day before I go back to Maine and pick up from here again. Didja get that?

Linocut in progress, green roll up, paper mask, sunshine!

After the adventure of the previous "fix-it" pass I figured the extra layer of "mixing white" would slow down the drying time, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover I could procrastinate packing for a few more hours and print the second, mid-tone green.

I had saved the leftover too-yellow-green from the first pass at the locust bush (I think that's what it is!), so I pulled that back out, added a good dollop of blue and some more transparent base and voila! It looked about right. And, hey! It helped that the sun was shining enthusiastically into the studio and I could feel confident about how the color would appear on the print. I cut another set of bird-shaped masks and was ready to (ahem) roll.

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 8

I am delighted (or perhaps relieved) to report that Step 8 went smoothly... good ink coverage, satisfactory color and value. The only troubling thing about it was that I then had to go back to packing my suitcase, knowing it would be more than a week before I could get back to work!

I think I can get this wrapped up in just two more color passes and a spot inking: Spot ink the red in the bird's epaulette, then a transparent gray over everything to create the third value of the greens and a mid-tone for the highlights in the bird's feathers. Theoretically that will bring me to the final black of the bird and I'll be finished... but of course theoretically is the operative word.

Tomorrow I'll be on the road (and in the air)... but look for me Tuesday with carving tools in hand and a determined-to-finish-before-Friday look in my eye. I've got another piece ready to go right after this, so the lino chips will be flying!

Linocut in Progress: A new tool in the printmaker's fixit kit

In the previous post I outlined a few ideas for dealing with a green that was both too yellow and too dark on the current linocut.

As a reminder, here's what the print looked like at the previous stage:

Step 6: The Problem Child

What was NOT included in my list of potential solutions was giving up and starting over. Novice printmakers frequently ask me if I ever abandon an edition before it's finished because I make a mistake. My answer? "Not anymore."

I can think of a few times when I walked away from editions in the middle of production. Most frequently this was because of technical problems... I was getting the ink too thick or printing unevenly, which caused problems on subsequent color passes. Once I gave up because the paper I was using was blowing so much loose fiber that I had to stop and clean the block after rubbing each and every print. Once or twice I got all the way to the end and had fewer than 5 good prints. And I can remember pitching a stack of almost-finished small prints into the trash because my original drawing was bad, and no amount of ink was going to fix that.

It happens. But these days, unless I am having serious technical issues, I try to work with whatever creative issues come up. There's a lot of ink and paper and time involved in printmaking, and I've learned that very few things are completely unsalvageable. Sometimes all they need is a re-think.

The Cranfield Traditional Relief Ink line has something called "Mixing White," in addition to their "Opaque White." I didn't know what a mixing white was, so I bought some. It turns out that it's a kind of nice, semi-transparent, NON-CHALKY white. Hmm. Could be useful.

Since I have so many "testers" (read: bad prints) in the line-up, I thought I'd go ahead and experiment with this mixing white. I rolled it out all by itself... no additional transparent base, no other pigmented ink. Just the white.

I cut some more bird-shaped masks, just to keep ink build-up out of that area, and then gave it a try.

Block rolled up with straight mixing white, bird-shaped mask in place.

Well. Whaddaya know.

Reduction linocut in progress. Step 7, the fixit step

That's pretty fine, don't you think? The value of the green is lighter and it's less obnoxiously yellow. And the bonus? The "mixing white" was an easy clean-up! Opaque whites can be really hard to clean off of blocks and brayers without a lot of elbow grease, but this little gem was no problem.

Whether or not it's leaving a white residue on the block I don't know yet, but I can't imagine that it will cause the problems that the yellow residue did at the beginning of this print, if indeed it leaves any.

Whew! Forward from here, with a new trick in my creative problem-solving arsenal. Although ARGH! I'm leading a workshop tomorrow morning and leaving town for a week on Tuesday, so I'm not convinced much more will happen before then. I hate leaving us all in suspense, but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

Linocut in Progress: Progress, Problems, and bad Photography

First: I've been told it's bad form to draw attention to failure by apologizing for it before anyone has noticed, but, hey. Brush and Baren readers deserve better photos than these. Even if they're not getting them at the moment.

Why this photographic ineptitude? Because I just don't have a consistently good spot for photographing work in progress in my current space. Especially at night, which is when I've been taking aforementioned (and belowposted) photos. So... apologies. And onward.

Linocut in Progress, Step 4. 

Step 4. How the heck did we get to Step 4 already? It hardly seems possible, but sure enough... here is a second blue pass, adding more interest to the background sky. So far, so good.

Except for the small issue of that first yellow. You might (or might not) remember that I carefully masked the area to print in Step 1. It worked great, but when I was finished printing and cleaned up, the yellow residue spread into other areas of the block. (You know how it goes... you're wiping something up, it spreads out, you wipe some more. Normal. No biggie.) But surprisingly it became a problem.

I still blame Daniel Smith. How many years has it been since they discontinued their ink line? Four? Five? More? Because I use so much (Graphic Chemical 1911) transparent base and so little straight-up pigmented ink I've been able, for the most part, to keep working with my stash of DS inks. I've been forced to experiment with a few other ink brands from time to time, but I've been thoroughly grumpy about it and haven't committed to anything.

However, when we were filming for my upcoming online linocut course, my producer rightly pointed out that I should be using inks readily available to students. I know a lot of artists have switched to the Caligo SafeWash, but I hear horror stories about slow drying times AND I am suspicious of water-miscible oil inks and paints. How do they make them water miscible? No doubt they add detergents or something.. and I just don't like the idea.

So I've been experimenting with the Cranfield Traditional Relief Ink, especially since it comes in nice, small tubes. In general I'm finding these inks surprisingly transparent straight out of the tube, which is both good and bad. I find the viscosity is a bit thin... requiring a lot more time to build up good color on the block... but printing has generally been okay.

The problem is clean-up. I know a lot of people switched to water-miscible inks because of the ease of clean-up, but I've never really had much problem cleaning up regular oil-based inks. Well, maybe the Hanco white... which is horrible... but that's another story.

The Cranfield inks seem to clean up easily, but they leave behind a stubborn residue of color. This became a problem when I printed the gray after the yellow... because a yellow stain just kept coming off the block into the sky area! I stopped to clean the block some more... no luck.

By the time I sorted it out I had six trashed prints on my hands. I was irritated, but figured the first two worst offenders would have been destined to be "testers" anyway. The others I hoped would be less obvious when I printed the second blue... but no such luck. So I decided I'd print a third blue... not in my original "plan*," but okay. (*Long-time readers will know that I don't ever REALLY plan.)

Reduction linocut in Progress, Step 5

I tried a darker blue at the top of the image, blending to nothing below the bird, but I didn't like it. I decided to just carry on as-is with a straight transparent gray across the entire block and conceded that I'll either have a half dozen losses from this run, or I'll figure out some other sort of fix.

It's possible I should have just stopped there for the day, since it was already getting late and the light was fading in the studio. (And it's been raining here for almost a week, so it's extra-gray in there in the evenings.) But I wanted to cheer myself up, so after clearing all the lino from the sky around the bird I mixed up a nice green.

Masking out the bird... no green there!

See? Perhaps a bit scarily bright, but other colors will go over it, so okay. There's no need to have that green in the bird, so a mask protected that area of the print.

Step 6... hey, where did my green go?

It all seemed okay, although maybe a little dark, so I cleaned up and went to bed.

This morning, by the light of a sunny day, my green seemed too yellow. How did that happen? If anything, over the blue it should have gone more green. Hm. And definitely too dark.

My problem-solving options, as I see them, are:

1) Run a lighter, more opaque green over the top of the current green before I go on...

2) Design something interesting to do with a second block to print over the top of everything before or after going on...      OR... and this is a tricky idea...

3) Consider this my mid-tone green. This means I would carve away the areas where I want to keep this color, then print a lighter color, then go back to thinking about the next darker color. I have done this before, with marginal success, but it can be really confusing to remember what's what.

Of course I could always decide that I'm fine with this yellow-green as my lightest green tone and go on from here, too.

So I'll let the prints sit for a day and take on some other tasks. I do have another block already carved and ready to go for a different image, but we'll see how I feel about that after I go take a walk. We're getting one day of blue sky before the rain starts again tomorrow, so clearer skies seem like just the thing to clear my head. (And perhaps my mental color palette.)

The Printmaker's Day (including a new Linocut-in-Progress)

It's been a rainy, foggy, blustery day here in midcoast Maine, not unexpected for this time of year and certainly not unexpected for... my birthday! How many times have I had a birthday blizzard? A lot. Today's rain, by comparison, is no big deal.

Luckily the weather held off last night for my opening at the Green Lion Gallery in Bath, and I was surprised by a number of friends who came out to see the show and then help me celebrate with a birthday-eve dinner. (You know who you are... thank you!)

When I woke this morning to rain lashing the windows I was delighted! My plans for a perfect birthday? A fire in the woodstove and ink on the table.

I had two new linos drawn and paper prepped. One of the images requires a lot of white space, which I have carved away already, but it's going to be a larger format than I've printed before and I have a little trepidation about it. When in doubt, start the smaller one!

One good reason for starting the smaller one is that the first color pass required only a spot-inking of yellow with a mask to contain it.

Linocut in progress, Step 1

Step 1 printed

An exciting start, eh?

Of course the carving for this step took about 5 minutes, and then I was ready for the second color. I mixed a transparent gray...

Step 2 printed

Not significantly more interesting than the first step, I know. But hey! Can you tell what it's going to be yet?

Carving for the third pass took at least four times the amount of effort as the previous color! (Snort. You do the math.) With things moving along so quickly I decided to go ahead and print a third color.

Step 3 printed

If the first yellow blob didn't immediately solve the mystery of subject matter for you, perhaps the state of things after the blue pass will start to provide some focus.....

Carving for Step 4 now will take a bit more time, and two full layers of ink (the first one hardly counts) will take a day or two to dry in our rainy weather, so I don't expect to print again for a couple of days. I have some small linos to hand-paint, frame, pack, and ship to Colorado this week, so probably I'll fit those tasks in between carving sessions.

It's been a fine day to begin my next trip around the sun. (Which I know is out there, even if I can't see it for the clouds.) Onward!