Linocut in Progr... Finished!

I woke up yesterday morning determined to finish this linocut, no matter what. I'd been waiting a couple of days again for ink to dry, and it was testing my patience mightily.

Thankfully a friend called on Wednesday to see if I was up for the trip to Portland for the weekly tango practica. Yes! Good to dance, and good to be away from the studio, where the temptation to rush things was high. Not so good was the return journey at 10:00pm in an unexpected snow storm, but hey... that's a different story.

ANYWAY! Despite the late night I popped awake early, got the fire going, ate some oatmeal, and...

Oh, wait. We have to back up a couple of days first.

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 13

Remember? I wanted one more run of a darkish, transparent blue-black. Which was this. I was feeling pretty good at this point, and wanted to just charge ahead and finish the birds. But with 12 other ink layers underneath, it was imperative to wait for this color pass to dry enough. Charging ahead would mean risking damage to this layer and possible adhesion problems with the next.

Which finally brings me back to yesterday. The birds which have emerged to dash through the forest are pileated woodpeckers. Their bright red crests were allegedly the inspiration for the cartoon character Woody Woodpecker, but there wasn't anything funny about printing those tiny little shapes.

I wanted the bird in the middle ground to appear... well, in the middle ground. More in shadow than the foreground bird. It was a decision which required mixing two different blobs of ink, using two ink knives, two brayers. A lot of work and mess for two tiny little bits of color.

My smallest brayer is an inch wide... too wide, really, for these shapes, so I also took the time to wipe extraneous ink from the block before printing. Now would NOT be the time to get careless.

I also cut newsprint masks to cover all but the birds before printing, as added protection against extraneous color. Apparently I didn't take a photo of the prints after the red bits were applied... but honestly, there wasn't that much to see.

Reds printed, I cleaned off the block (at least that part didn't take long) and mixed up the final blue-black transparent color for the birds. This time I do have a photo of the mask... although it's on the prints, not the block:

And finally....

All done! Slightly embiggenable with a click if you want to see more details.

Whew! That was a journey and a half. It's still lacking a title... I'm thinking about something with the word "chase" in it... Chasing Shadows? Possibly. I need to sit with the happily drying prints for a little bit yet.

So... what's next? I'm not sure. Perhaps something smaller and simpler that I can finish quickly! One more snow scene, maybe– before I stop chasing shadows and start chasing spring.

Linocut in Progress: Sneaking up on it

So much for my belief that things would be quiet in January and I'd be able to get consistent studio time. I've been so wrong about my schedule that I am actually looking forward to the blizzard we're expecting this weekend. PLEASE let me be snowed in so I can get some work done. (But not so snowed in that we lose power, which is a potential problem if the forecasts which include sleet in our future are correct.)

Still, things are moving ahead on the current linocut, if not as quickly or smoothly as I had hoped.

After all the mucking about with masks of the last few color passes, I really wanted a couple of straightforward steps. This is challenging because of course I'd like to keep too much green out of the tree trunks and too much brown out of the tree needles.

But my masks haven't been precise (they never are), and things were starting to look a bit scattered, so I wanted a color pass that would be unifying without destroying the color temperatures. Hmm. What about a nice transparent gray?

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 9

Yes! That will do nicely. Browns are still brown, greens are still green, and it all seems more coherent again.

Now what?

I would really like to resolve some of these trees better.. and soon... but I am on the fence about the background. Will I get a better effect from keeping the darkest darks in the far distance... or should I leave the distance sort of middle-value and the foreground trees darker? Decisions, decisions.

And since I still couldn't decide, I took a risk with the next overall color pass and mixed a lovely gray-green.

Transparent gray-green rollup

Purdy, isn't it? It looks alarming on the block, especially over the tree trunks, but it's very transparent and I crossed my fingers that basic color theory would be my friend. The existing trunk color is a sort of reddish-brown. Transparent green over that should become more brown... shouldn't it?

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 10

Oh, whew! That worked.

So now it's back to the carving table. I think the focus now will be on the trunks... to get some of their texture established. I'm on the fence (again) about what the next color pass should be. I really want to wrap this up soon, so I'm considering one transparent brown pass... or maybe gray? Or maybe blue-gray. Or....

Linocut in Progress: The subtle steps

It's been a frustrating week of bureaucratic headaches, so studio time has felt extra precious and restorative. All the "stuff" of life– particularly the stresses of a self-employed life– can really crank the volume on the self-doubt up to eleven. Going to the studio can sometimes feel futile or worse, frivolous.

But if I can push past all that and pick up my tools...  Well. Let's just say it's interesting how the frustration can dial back to the level of background noise.

Progress on the current linocut continues to be subtle, but that will change soon. Here's the second step, another transparent blue, just a bit darker.

Reduction linocut in progress: Step 2

This seems pretty good overall, but you know me. I have to complicate things as least a little or it doesn't feel like I'm working hard enough. I decided a graduated blue, light to dark, top to bottom, would add more interest and allow me to do more subtle things with the shadows in the foreground.

Reduction linocut in progress: Step 3

I am continually frustrated by trying to photograph blues, but hopefully you get the idea. Both of these images have been uploaded a little bit larger than they appear in the post, so if you click on them you can flip back and forth between them in a larger format and get a better idea. Or not.

The next step? Whew. Lots of carving. Almost all of the snow shadows have to come out now, including lots of small bits between tree branches. There are also a couple of surprises getting ready to emerge from the background, and I'll be trying to work out my next color choices. Stay tuned!

Linocut in Progress: Oh, those happy beginning stages.

There are few things more satisfying than starting a new linocut. Well, I suppose there might be more or different things for other people, but this weekend starting a new linocut was the most satisfying thing for me. And since this is my blog... oh... whatever. Let's just get on with it.

Since this new image is..... (drum roll) a snow scene, there was a lot of carving to accomplish before ink could roll. And before the carving there was a lot of drawing. Did I mention I found this satisfying?

This morning ink did roll, the first color was printed, and the new linocut is officially in progress. Even though this first color pass was quite pale (in fact I beefed up the contrast for this photo so you could actually see something) it already defines a lot of what's going on.

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 1

Fun, eh? What's even more fun is that there's a little surprise in this forest. I don't think it will be visible at the next color pass... maybe the one after that. But first... back to the carving table. Which is satis... oh, never mind. Just stay tuned.

Linocut in Progress: Back to the yellow rectangle

There's no resting on laurels (or snow shadows) around here! I took the weekend to catch up with exciting things like bookkeeping and bill paying and long-neglected emails, but Monday morning it was back to work on that yellow rectangle.

I printed the third pass of this linocut during a pause in the progress of "Shadowplay," but didn't post it because there wasn't much to show. Really. Not much to look at here:

"Fleeting," reduction linocut, Step 3

If you squint you might be able to tell that there are now two yellow-y colors and a peach-y one. The ink in this third pass was again a transparent lavender-pink.

After some more carving I pushed the ink color even more towards lilac, but kept it very transparent.

It's a lovely color, but of course being transparent it looks completely different on the print.

"Fleeting," reduction linocut, Step 4

With this step I think the cat is out of the bag in terms of subject matter. Or maybe it's more accurate to say the tree is out of the forest.

This is a large-ish piece, 12" x 18" (30 x 46 cm), and I have a LOT of carving to do now. Many, many tree trunks crossing in front and back of each other make for some confusing moments with the carving tools! But I'm having fun so far, especially since I'm working with an entirely different color palette from the previous piece. (There is not ONE bit of blue in this print. Not. One.)