Hi-Land Dodge - 2nd color printed!

Managed to finally get a day off where I wasn't totally overwhelmed with things to do and got the 2nd color pass on the Hi-Land Dodge lino printed.  I'm very happy with the result so far and will start carving away the necessary areas so that I can get the next and final color printed soon.
  

 

These pics are a better representation of the color.  The sun came out while I was taking these pictures and helped to give me a better value scale.

The actual block is currently drying and I'm excited to get carving it tonight.  In my head, I'd like to print the final color by Saturday, but if I was being honest with myself I think I'd be lucky to just get it carved by Saturday.  Guess we'll see how far I can get with it tonight.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #Dodge #Hi-Land #Utah #ZionNationalPark #UT-9 #TradingPost #ZionParkRV

Blick999 press finally in place!

After a little over a week sitting on a dolly I finally got my press up onto my new table.  Had my wife help me lift the thing so I didn't kill myself.  I'm very, very excited to have this up and ready to go...now all I need to is to come up with an appropriately sized project to do.  I'd like to do a larger print as my first one for this press, but since my rollers aren't very large I'm second guessing that thought.

My current projects (Diner and Hi-Land Dodge) are both under way on my older press.  I'm not sure that I want to switch presses with them since the other press is already set to a good pressure for the Hi-Land Dodge.   The Ternes Burton registration pins are already in place on another press bed for the Diner print so it can't really be moved to this press either.

I do have some ideas for this one though.  I have a Holiday Inn sign from the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati and a couple landscapes that I'm considering.  I recently saw a new reduction lino from an artist of a landscape and it blew me away so I've gotten excited about creating a landscape.  I also would like to do some urban-ish plein air styled lino.  I've always been a major fan of artists who do paintings of houses and streets of houses and on occasion see really good shots when the sun seems to be just right and the shadows are in the perfect places.

The way this week looks...Thursday should give me some time to print the next color for the Hi-Land Dodge lino.  I've been slowly going over the block looking for areas that I may have missed when I last carved it, but so far it looks okay.  I'm sure after I print I'll find several spots I missed, but hopefully they won't be anything major.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #etchingpress #Blick999 #DickBlick #updates

No printing today....but, I've been reworking where I work.

So my original plan was to have carved away the rest of the Hi-Land Dodge block and to be printing today.  That hasn't quite worked out.  My new etching press arrived Tuesday and it took me quite a while to get it inside by myself.  It weighs almost 200 pounds and the crate was another 30 or so.

I realized that where I planned to put it would not hold up under it's weight so I spent all of Wednesday driving around to various used/re-purposed furniture locations around me and in the end wound up at IKEA.  The table pictured above I found as I was getting ready to buy a much smaller table (for 2) - this is a 4 person table and was on clearance for $10 more.

Got it home and realized that I needed to do a complete room makeover in order to fit it anywhere into the room.  I literally spent all day Thursday playing switch-a-roo and making a massive disaster before finally starting to get things back together so there was no time for carving in the last couple days.  The press will take up the entire end of that table and since the table is pine, I'm probably going to have to buy some sort of wooden base for the press....otherwise it may sink into the soft pine surface.

I'm getting ready to do some carving today and I'll probably take the block with me to work tomorrow to work on it some more.

Carving away! Hi-Land Dodge

Been carving away the light grey areas of the Hi-Land Dodge block for the last couple days.  Some of the areas are very small and somewhat intricate.  I'm mostly trapped into using only the smallest cutter that I have.  In some areas I've been able to use a larger gouge to clear out some areas, but mostly it's a little here and a little there with a little more here and then there.

I think so far so good though.  It seems that my coloring different areas different colors has certainly helped me out, but I've come across some areas where it seems I missed marking them.  In a couple areas they should've been in the initial carving and should've been the paper color, but now they are the first light grey color.  Not a big issue really and no one will really know which ones were missed.  As I look at it now, I've already forgotten where the areas were.

 

In some of these areas I have to be very careful.  When carving, the lino has a tendency to break away if the area being left behind is very small.  I've made a very conscious effort to not have that happen and so far so good.  Hoping to have this piece ready to print by Saturday morning.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #dodge #truck #Hi-Land #Utah #ZionNationalPark #TradingPost #carving

Hi-Land Dodge update! 1st color printed!!

I would like to say that when I have issues printing that I come right back at it and try again.  That is not the case.  I usually get frustrated and focus on a singular piece of art and try and try and try to get it right.  It doesn't leave much time for the other pieces that I want to work on.

I decided this morning that I was going to change that and wanted to work with a color of ink that I knew would work for me.  I've never had issues with Gamblin White and Black so I decided to print the first light grey color to the Hi-Land Dodge linocut.

It makes me feel better to know that I've not lost my touch when inking up the linoleum.  I'm happy that all of these prints actually worked out for me and I've already started carving the next layer away!  In case anyone has forgotten, this piece is going to be Monochromatic - meaning that it's only goes to done in a single color, but have tints and shades of that color.  I decided I wanted nothing more than various shades and tints of grey.  Since it's my first vehicle I want to keep this as simple as possible...which is something I normally have a massive issue with.  Hopefully within a couple days I can get the areas marked in green carved away and get the next color printed.

(Singular image of the first color)

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #lightgrey #grey #gray #Hi-Land #Dodge #truck #Utah