Linocut in Progress: Theatrical Cut

Director's Cut: The movie the way the Director actually wanted it, but the studio said no.

Extended Cut: Really the thing I ALWAYS want. The Director's Cut, plus extra scenes, plus all the BTS (Behind the Scenes) documentaries. And sometimes even the commentaries. I love to hear and watch clever and creative people working together to make something wonderful.

Theatrical Cut: The thing we got instead.

You see where I'm going with this, right? You're about to get a Theatrical Cut, incomplete storylines and all. Sorry about that.

I have struggled to get any work done in the studio for the last 4 or 5 months, and when I did manage to carve lino or roll out ink, I didn't do a thorough job of documenting the process. Posting photos of work in progress felt like posting pictures of a meal or something... but less "Instagrammable." It's all been done before! BOR-ing. 

But here we are. I promised myself that Brush and Baren would see at least a little more action than it has for the last 8 months, and at the moment this is what I have. I'll do better in future.

Hey! That's ink on a block of lino! What's happening here?

But look! Here's some ink! On a block! Ready to print! 

Hm. Actually I think this rollup was for the second, or even third pass at this small image. This seems to be the first in-progress photo I took, though.

Reduction linocut in progress: Step... um... Three? Four?

I worked on this piece back in July, and my memory is fuzzy, but I think at this point there are three ink passes in place. A "peachy" one and two values of ochre. Hard to tell, but I think that's right. (Nope. See below.)

This is a small piece, just 5x7 inches. We had a stupidly hot and humid July this year, and I couldn't bear working on anything larger. But I wanted a couple of new, small things for the local gallery season and a 5x7 felt like something I could manage without disintegrating into a pile of sweaty goo. (TMI? Probably.)

Let's see... what do I have next? There isn't another photo of an ink rollup for the entire process... so we'll just have to do a little sleuthing and see what we can figure out from bad photos of the color stages.

Linocut in progress: Step four?

With a bit of squinting, and tossing about of mental files in the dim, dark recesses of my brain, I now think this might be the fifth color pass. I think the very first pass was a solid rectangle of pale rusty-peachy. No white in this image at all. 

1) Pale rusty-peachy rectangle

2) Mid-value rusty-peachy (These are technical color names, I'll have you know.)

3) Yellowy ochre

4) Ochrey ochre

5) Transparent gray which turned greenish when it covered the ochrey bits. As planned. 100%.

Linocut in progress: Now we're on six!

6) Another gray, a bit more opaque and a bit darker and a bit cooler. (Again, these are very specific and technical descriptions of color. Because I said so.)

Subject matter seems clear at this point, yes? Some rocks and some rock weed. A common view at low tide in Maine.

Linocut in progress: Step 7

7) A darker, bluer gray.

And then I am reminded of this old cartoon (frequently mis-attributed to Gary Larson of Far Side fame, but actually done by a guy named Sidney Harris):

8) and 9) Although in this case it's "be more explicit in steps 8 and 9." Because two more gray passes happened here... not one. 

Intertidal Tapestry, reduction linocut, 5" x 7", Edition of 25

And that's it! A little something for the Underfoot series, although I just noticed that I haven't actually made a page for it on my website yet. Better get that done!

But, hey! When was the last time you saw me get away with finishing a print in fewer than 10 passes? 

Linocut in Progress: (Lucky 13th) Final Step

 I am off next week to head up the Arts & Birding session at Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine, so I have been feeling the pressure to wrap up the current linocut and get on with workshop prep! 

The 10th color pass was a short and sweet one. There are four little periwinkle snails in this image, and I wanted to lighten their overall tone. This was accomplished with spot inking a semi-transparent layer of a very pale beige-y color. (Sepia plus white.) 

Step 10 - Spot inking and mask

I used a newsprint mask to contain the color even further, and, voila... periwinkles. 

Step 10 - Printed

For Step 11 we were back to a bit of alarming-looking color. 

Step 11 - rollup

I really only wanted a wee bit of that orangey color to get involved, and I did NOT want it in the rocks, so for each run through the press I stopped to wipe the color out of places I didn't want it to go. Tedious, but necessary.

Step 11 - Put the color on, take it back off

Step 11 printed

Okay, getting close now! Maybe just one more dark? How about a transparent sepia with maybe a skosh (technical term) of blue in it?

Step 12 rollup

Step 12 printed

And here's where I paced through the house and gnashed my teeth for a little bit. It could have been finished at this point. It probably was. But I waffled back and forth about putting just a few more darks in the deepest shadows of the rock weed. I already felt like the whole thing was a bit more "contrasty" than I wanted, and another dark would make it even more so. But I also didn't feel like I had quite the value range I wanted overall.

Okay.

One more dark.

Lucky Step 13 rollup

I added a surprising amount of blue to the existing sepia-dominant color. I wanted a little more cool in the shadows... everything is so warm! 

Final color pass. "Rockweed and Periwinkles," reduction linocut, 8x10, edition of 20

I honestly wasn't sure I'd made the right decision when I went to bed that night.... but by light of day I decided it was a good call, and I'm satisfied this piece is complete. 

Now. Will I have time to get another one prepped before I go to camp? Three days to go!

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!

Linocut in Progress: In the Weeds. And the Rocks.

Okay! Carrying on with the current linocut in progress. I did promise things would get a bit more visually interesting from this point... let's see if I was right.

As you have probably surmised by now, I have a certain amount of color moving through the center of this image, and less color on the outside edges. I need to keep building tones in all areas of the print, so it's time to employ some blended color.  

Reduction linocut in progress: Step 5 rollup

For this roll-up I deepened the yellow once again with the addition of some more red, and I mixed a lovely warm beige-y color. I got out my trusty old skool Speedball brayers so I could control the application of ink to the block a little better. I used a small 2" roller to apply straight beige to the rocks (you knew that was what they were going to be, right?), and I used a blended roll on the 4" brayer in a tricky way. I ran the color first in one direction, and then turned the block around to run the blended roll in the other direction! This kept the yellow in the middle-most parts of the block and the blended-to-beige bits towards the outer edges. 

Did that make sense? Maybe it will when you see the result. 

Step 5 printed

You might also notice some lighter-colored blobs in the lower part of the image. I used a paper towel to wipe the color out of these few spots before I printed each time. There are some details going in here that could benefit from being less yellow, and it doesn't hurt to minimize ink layers whenever possible. 

Step 6 rollup

And now it's time for a bit more drama. The ink roll up looks ominous on the glass, but I promise it's not so alarming on the print. Remember there's a lot of yellow in the middle already to minimize the depth of the green.

Step 6 printed

Well, okay. Maybe it does seem a little alarming. But we're in the middle stages of this image, and long time readers (and other printmakers) will know that this is when things often get a bit funky. Nothing to do but cross our fingers and hope I got this right. 

As an aside... you might notice the ink coverage looks a bit splotchy in the lower portion of the image. Not to worry... there is a lot more to be done down in this area and the splotchiness will be covered by subsequent colors. 

Like this:

Step 7 rollup

Back to the big roller, because this color pass is just a semi-transparent gray across the entire block. I would have liked to make it even more transparent, but after the complete fiasco of using a lot of transparent base, I am really, REALLY head shy. 

But I think it worked okay....

Step 7 printed

So! What's next? I think it's time to start working more on the areas around the rockweed (yes! this is an image of seaweed). I think the rocks only need one (okay, maybe two) more darks, and those will be most along the edges closest to the rockweed. Next color? Something orangey-browny, I think. We'll see how I feel after the next stage of carving.

Linocut in Progress: The Saga of Just One More

So this supposedly simple thing has, as is typical for a certain printmaker you know, gotten somewhat less simple. A single-color linocut idea has turned into a multi-color reduction lino epic, and we're not finished yet.

Step 4 rollup. Tasty, if I do say so myself

But seriously. When one gets a chance to mix and use these yummy colors, how can one refuse?

All the purdy step 4 colors

In terms of individual passes through the press this image is at Step 4, but color-wise we are on colors 7, 8, and 9.  My attempt to try something radically different from my usual process has run right off the rails, EXCEPT for one thing. In my usual process it's likely I would be on a press pass of 7 or 8, because I would have made a point in the early stages to mask areas and ink more selectively. For this image I have done zero masking, and have let colors overlap where they will. This has led to some parts of the image having... what shall I call it? Not really color bleed. More like color creep. 

I am, indeed, allowing color outside the lines. 

Which is all to say that while this isn't drastically different from my usual process, it does represent at least a little relaxing of my (ahem) control issues! 

Here's where things stood after the application of some greens, reds, and more gray.

Linocut in progress: Step 4 printed

I suppose it might have worked to stop at this point, carve for a final black pass, and call it done... but I was teetering dangerously on the fence. Have I gone too far in the addition of color to be able to jump to a single final pass and have it be successful? Am I at the point at which I need to abandon all pretense of trying to keep things "simple?"

Step 5 rollup

I decided I needed a mid-dark value so the jump to a final dark wouldn't be too harsh. Plus... I had unfortunately been ignoring the crab, too. It had gotten a bit too dark and needed lightening.  But surely after "just one more" color pass I'd have a good feel for where I was. Right?

I rolled up a nice olive green for the entire block, and ran a semi-transparent white over the crab.

Step 5 printed

At this point I felt we were at the good news/bad news stage. The good news was that I was starting to feel quite optimistic about the image overall. The bad news was that the "keep it simple" line definitely had been crossed. Plus there's the problem of the crab that needs resolution. Yep. It's anybody's guess how this finishes now!

Linocut in Progress: Back into the studio!

Goodness. 

I knew it had been a while since I posted anything here, but good grief! More than two months? That is rather appalling, and it doesn't seem possible.

But then, that's summer. It always seems to disappear in a morass of busy-ness punctuated by stretches of lethargy when it's too hot and humid to move or even think. 

A couple of weeks ago the weather, my schedule, AND my attitude started to improve, and I got myself back into the studio. I've been feeling for some time that I wanted to try something a bit different, so I dug out a large piece of lino (18 x 24 inches!... about 46 x 61 cm) and drew up a complex image that I (ahem) intended to print in a single color.

If that quote about roads and good intentions just popped into your mind, well.... you're not wrong.

It took less than a day for me to stray from the path and wonder if perhaps a little color wouldn't hurt. I decided to carve for white and then print a layer of rough color... nothing special or careful... and then I would carve for the "final" black layer.

Step 1 rollup

Sure. Why not? I mean, if I hated it, I could always just finish the carving and print as straight black-and-white. Right? Right?

Step 1 printed

I slapped some color on to the block willy-nilly and printed it. Okay. Interesting, sort of. Any edition I might come up with will be variable, but I don't hate the idea. 

Althooooooough.......hm.

This color seems a little too sketchy. It would probably be distracting under a single black layer. "One more" random color pass to even things out couldn't hurt, could it?

Step 2 rollup

I carved the block some more, darkened the leftover inks from the first color pass, and did a second haphazard roll-up.

Step 2 printed

In general I felt better about that decision, but the color overall seemed a little too bright. Too yellow. (Which is hard to tell in this photo... the light has been terrible for photography lately.) If I were to go ahead and carve the entire image and then plop straight black over this...well... I don't think it will look as nice as it might if I tone things down a bit. 

(You can absolutely see where this is going now, can't you?)

I carved some more, telling myself the entire time that I could still print a "plain old black-and-white version" because I hadn't crossed the threshold of removing material from the block that would create awkward visual holes in the image. I mixed a color that was very greenish, and another slightly warmer gray... and printed a third layer.

Step 3 printed

Okay.

That's more like it. I can go ahead and just cut the whole block now for a final pass. Four steps... that's more than I expected, but okay. This is a BIG block. It's taking a long time to carve even for these not-very-intricate stages. It will be good to just focus on carving for several days and be done with it.

Except that, of course, that's not what I did. Because as the prints sat there staring at me with their mottled ochre-and-gray attitudes, the little voice in my head started suggesting that the color could be just a bit more interesting if I stopped and did "just one more" stage. 

Sure. Just one more.  

Linocut in Progress: Finishing the Harlequin Ducks

By now I really should know better than to make pronouncements like "I think I'm all done cutting masks for this image." Because, of course, after the last color pass I felt the current linocut needed just a little more oomph in the color department. Something a little brighter, and maybe a little surprising, but not obnoxious. Something, perhaps, in the water.

Almost all of the lino has been carved away in the areas of the block that represent water, but there were a couple of sections still intact that could be interpreted as the shadows or reflections of the birds in the waves. In order to contain the color, though, I had to (wait for it)... cut some masks. Which I said I wasn't going to do anymore. But I did. Like this:

Step 13 mask

I mixed a lovely turquoise as the color to be corralled by this mask. The inks I used are a bit transparent straight from the tube, so I knew they wouldn't appear this light and bright on the prints, but there was still an anxious moment when I pulled the first one. 

Step 13 rollup

Whew! Okay. Subtle, but there. Just enough. I can't really explain why this step felt so important, other than a vague feeling of too much sameness in the overall image. It's a tiny thing, but I felt much better for having done it.

Step 13 printed

But NOW we are definitely done with the mask-cutting. One more color pass remains. A deep almost-black will add just a bit more depth and detail...

Step 14 rollup

And, voila! Here it is. This is a direct scan of the final image, so the color is pretty good and the light is finally consistent. I've uploaded this at a decent size, so be sure to click on it for a better view. 

The Lazy Eight? The Crazy Eight? Eight is Enough? Step 14, final
Image 8 x 24 inches, Edition of 18
UPDATE: Final title: "Swell Gathering"

Once again all that remains is a title. There are eight birds, well, seven-and-a-half if you want to be technical about it, so that seems an obvious starting point. But it feels like there's probably something to be said about the comfort of a "pod" of sociable companions, too, so I'll keep thinking about it. 

What's next? Don't know yet. I'm back to work on the content for my online linocut course, which I'm trying to get launched before Christmas, so that's taking a fair chunk of time. And I am frequently distracted by the pesky red squirrels that have finally figured out how to get to my bird feeders. 

No matter. A little puttering about along the shore, in the woods, and in the studio, will no doubt turn up something to challenge me again soon.

Linocut in Progress: Pulling things back together

Maybe it's too soon to celebrate, but I think that newsprint mask-making time might actually be over! After isolating the two female ducks and establishing their overall body color, it's time to pull the image back together with some unifying color passes. 

Step 11 is a rich, transparent blue that will create shadows in a few areas of the females and bring the overall tone and value of the male birds back into line.

Reduction linocut in progress: Step 11 rollup

And here's where it landed us:

Step 11 printed

It's starting to come back together, but the females are still visually overpowering the males. It's time to really focus on those handsome boys. Here's the roll-up for Step 12, an even richer blue-gray. You can see that the farthest-distant female is almost completely removed from the block, and just a few shadow textures remain in the closest bird. Additionally, all the water except for a few details around the birds and a couple of waves in the foreground has also been removed.

Step 12 ink rollup

Aaannndddd... hooray! A nice day and some indirect light outdoors, so I was able to get a decent photo of Step 12 after it was printed. I also uploaded this shot at an embiggenable size, so you can click on it to get a better look at where everything stands. 

Step 12 printed, embiggenable with a click

We are really close now. I think I only need one more pass to finish up the birds... but I am undecided about whether I should mess around with two little sections of water that haven't yet been carved away. It might not be necessary to put a different color on them, but it also might be just the right little zing! if I do it right. We'll see what I decide when I get there...

Linocut in Progress: The maybe-not-ugly-but-certainly-not-attractive duckling stage

As I mentioned in my last post, it's time to move away from the pleasant and harmonious color scheme we've had so far and put in the contrasting orangey parts of the male ducks. 

Since only small areas of the finished image will need these orangey shapes, I can use a combination of spot inking and masks to move the process along. I used the same piece of acetate as before, placed it over my carved block, and traced my new shapes in blue instead of pink.

Another mask pattern

Again, I used this pattern to create newprint masks... like this: 

Step 6 mask, ready to print

It took a couple of tries to get the first of my two orangey colors right. This paler color will be the highlighted areas.

Step 6 ink rollup

Before you see this next photo I have to apologize for the continued poor quality of my in-progress images. Now that the sun has made a seasonal shift it's difficult for me to find a spot in the studio with natural light for photography,  so these have all been very dull and and strange, with glare from artificial lights... But hopefully you get the idea...

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 6 printed,
embiggenable with a click

Awkward little shapes, but sufficient for now. I did just a tiny bit of carving and then used spot inking...

Step 7 rollup

and the same newsprint mask....

Step 7 on the press with mask in place. See what I mean about dodgy light?

And heeeeerreee's Step 7 printed. The orange looks particularly harsh in this photo, but it's not nearly this bright. And a lot of it will be obscured by future color passes, anyway. 

Reduction linocut, Step 7 printed,
slightly embiggenable with a click

Thankfully the next color pass will be a blue-gray that should start to pull the image back together again, because all these awkward-looking prints on the drying rack make me feel very uncomfortable. Stay tuned!