...where are you?? I have a lot of candy left - no, really, a lot. And I don't want to keep it around, so I'll have to take it to work tomorrow. So come and get some! I got the caramel Reeses peanut butter cups....
Seriously, I've been looking at this thing in various stages for over a week (almost 2 weeks) and I'm sick of it. Is that normal? I feel like I gave birth to a deformed baby. A lot of work and I don't even like to be in the same room with it.
It was a strange, tiring week, ending in a pretty intense three-day work retreat, which I enjoyed despite the fact that it exhausted me...I went to bed at 9:30 on Friday night. Then, the rest of the weekend was spent on this thing, and I still have work to do in that class to make up for the time I was at Work Camp! And to top it off, I missed two assignments in my other class.
This week will be better, I think; Halloween on Wednesday is something pleasant to look forward to, even though we get only a few kids most years. And the coming weekend is daylight savings time: fall back, hoorah!
And I can start the next woodcut. I do feel like I'm learning something each time, with these. The best part of doing this one was figuring out the sequence: it's six colors, two separate woodblocks, reduction cut on both. One for the yellow, pink, and dark red, and one for the blue, green and black. Having a printing background must have helped; I do know something about color separations!
Anyway, the weather's been nice, and things outside smell wonderfully like Fall...ok, I can't complain too much. Life's good.
And here it is...it's just a one-color (black, obviously) print, since this was my first try at woodblock printing.
The wood was a piece my teacher gave me; it's poplar plywood. The wood was kind of splintery, especially once I got through the first layer.
I did order some nice Japanese printing paper (and some special Shina ply for my next attempt) from McClains printmaking supply, who I am very impressed with. I placed my order online at lunch Monday, and had the package the next day.
The steps in making this print, if you're interested, are below. I basically started with a pencil sketch, which I re-drew in pen and then transferred onto the wood block.
Then I carved the wood, which took several days.
Last night, I made the first six prints! I'll make more, probably, but I'm eager to get on to the next one, which will be a multi-color reduction print, like I did with the lino block, but with wood.
Well, it took most of the weekend and Monday evening, but I finished a little class project: a 4-color linocut block print. Here's a little step-by-step tour of the process.
After doing some thumbnails and color studies, I transferred my final drawing onto a 6x8 inch linoleum block. The colors are printed light to dark, with the largest areas printing first. Each color is cut down to print the next color. Because of this, you can never go backwards; the number of prints you make of the first color is the final number you'll have when you're done. Reading about this, I found that the technique is also called "suicide block" printing, which I thought was kind of cool.
Here's the block cut for the first print; just the areas that I wanted to keep white are cut out.
The design is drawn on in waterproof ink, because I'll have to wash the block as I go along. I have the color studies nearby as I carve, to make sure I'm cutting the right areas each time.
This is the first color, printed and hung up to dry. I did a range of yellows and oranges.
Here's the second color, a lavender purplish-blue.
And the third color, a teal green.
For the last color, black, you can see that the block is almost gone; just the black image is left.
In any case, I had a lot of fun doing this project. It's the first in a series of 6, all of which will be about bees. I'll post them here as I complete them!
