Linocut in Progress: The demo's end

So here we are, back in Salida with an unfinished reduction linocut demo piece that needs resolving.

I decided that the best way to prevent continual mucking about in the background was to carve it all out. So I did. From this point on the only printable surface on the block is bird and wire.

I wanted some highlights in the bird's wings, something a little warmer. I didn't want this color to influence the face, though, so I wiped it out before printing.

Step 8

The next step was a gray to keep those highlights crisp and get the twisted wire in to the proper color range.

Step 9

I was tempted, as I often am, to just leave it at this point. But the bird needs a little more definition to pull it away from the background.

Step 10

Again I thought about stopping here at Step 10, and part of me wishes that I would have done so. But the shadow on the bird's belly is so dark that to make it read "shadow" instead of "blue feathers" I'm going to need one more hit of contrast and oomph.

Step 11

The last color wasn't solid black, although it reads that way in the scan. But overall... okay. I think to be really effective the background on the left of the image should have been lighter to start with, but that color went down at Step 4 and after it was carved away I was stuck with it. If I REALLY wanted to correct it I could cut a second block and overprint something lighter, but that would cause its own problems, and this was supposed to be just a simple demo piece! Time to move on.

One thing I neglected to mention at the beginning of this piece is that it represents my first return to the printing on the thinner Awagami kozo paper since I got my press. Because I would be working by hand at the demo location I wanted something I could manage with a baren and spoon... and the 250# BFK Rives that I have been using was not going to work. The thinner paper was a little trickier to manage in the press at first, but once I got the feel for it I didn't have any problems. And I didn't tear anything, which would sometimes happen with a too-vigorous application of spoon pressure when hand printing.

Overall a satisfying experiment, even if it turned out to be a bigger deal than intended. (And I got a good set of step-by-step prints and an edition of 10 or 12 out of the effort, too!)

Linocut in Progress: When good demos go bad

For the past month several of the artists exhibiting in the Colorado Governor's Show have been presenting demonstrations of their work throughout the town of Loveland, where the show itself continues through this weekend.

As part of the demo series, I made the journey north last weekend to participate in the Print Day Open House at Artworks. Since it can be a challenge for folks unfamiliar with reduction linocut to wrap their heads around the process I usually like to have a "simple" print in progress before I arrive for a demo, with a print pulled out at each stage so visitors can see how the image evolves.

Ahem.

Simple. Four or five colors should be enough to get the idea across, right? Right. But longtime readers know me well enough to know that the best laid plans... don't actually exist. At least not where I am concerned. The line between creating a print example and making an example of myself is often very, very thin.

To wit:

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4: Might be able to finish this in two more steps, except....

Squirrel!* Now I'm headed down a whole other path. Step 5

Step 6 (Which was getting too dark, so I had to go lighter.)

Step 7 (And then was too bright, so time to tone it back down.)

Yep. By the time I went to do my demo I was already at seven stages and nowhere near done. My original intention was to leave the background quite plain, as in Step 4. But then I thought perhaps it would be fun to play with blended, or rainbow rolls... and things started to get a wee bit out of hand.

I rather foolishly thought that after this stage the finish would be simple... but as you'll see in my next post, it didn't quite turn out that way. I did enjoy experimenting, however. I think you can see that Step 6 was a lighter and brighter blended roll than Step 5, and that I toned everything back down with the blended roll in Step 7.

It's my tendency to ask "what if" that sends me off on these printmaking tangents. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't, but I always learn something along the way. (Sometimes all I learn is how to clean up messes, but hey... that's a useful skill, too.)

(* You know... it's that joke about a dog's focus disappearing when a squirrel appears. Printmaker's focus distracted by blended roll.)

What's it All About Wednesday: Usurper

"Usurper," reduction linocut

The vernal equinox has come and gone and bird geeks like me are eagerly scanning the skies and the shrubbery for arriving migrants. A couple of weeks ago I made a quick trip south to the Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge to enjoy the spectacle of sandhill cranes on a migration stopover. It's an annual rite of the season, but while there's nothing like the calls, dancing, and flight of cranes, it's the arrival of swallows that says "spring" to me.

Once or twice as I drove around the refuge I thought I caught a glimpse of a swallow, but I was never certain, since much of my attention was focused on avoiding a run-in with other bird-gawking drivers.

I haven't yet seen a tree swallow here at home but I expect them any day now, swooping, chattering, and generally bringing a ruckus back to my winter-dormant walking route.

They'll also be creating a little drama for folks who have put out bluebird nest boxes, because such boxes are often usurped by tree swallows.

Bluebird (intended) Box 03, of which you see a corner here, is attached to a fence post on my walk route, and while there are plenty of bluebirds around I have never seen it host anything but tree swallows. The male swallow stands guard and his chatter – half cheerful, half scolding – is a daily confirmation that regardless of human intention he is exactly where he is supposed to be.