Blues houses, orange neon and green letters

Green Street - 8x10" Reduction

This past Thursday I managed to print three more pieces....first up is the Green Street print.  I had been kicking around which house needed to be printed next and since I had gotten a new tube of Cranfield Ultramarine Blue in the mail a couple weeks back it won.  Only the side of the house in this instance was printed as the front is in the shadow and will be printed a darker blue.

The Cranfield Traditional Relief Inks are a little stiffer than I'm used to working with so it took a little time to realize that I needed to loosen it up a bit.  The first couple prints that I printed had inconsistent color application so once I had printed the remaining pieces with the loosened up ink, I went back and reprinted the first 4.  I think once I print the next blue layer (the shadow color) this print will really start to form and I'll have a better idea as to how it's working out.  So far though, I'm very happy with it and the registration has been very consistent.

a - 10x10" Reduction

Believe it or not, I actually forgot about this print.  The amount of carving has been minimal for the last couple steps and I don't really spend much time with it whereas the Green Street and TACO prints have had significant planning and carving.  I guess I'm just not used to simpler pieces.

Anyhow, this past week I printed a nice orange layer for the neon tubes that skirt the edges of the  print.  This piece did not take too much time to print since I was only printing these tiny areas.  The big change will happen next week when I print the red.  The red area takes up the majority of the print and I'm excited to really see how this print changes once I get that color put down.  I made sure that the orange for the tubing that I just printed was nowhere near the color of the red....hopefully this will mean that the colors will have more contrast than previous attempts at putting these colors so closely together.

TACO - 12x6" Reduction

TACO is practically done.  I have possibly 1 to 2 layers remaining, but if I like how the next dark green shadow layer looks, the print may actually be finished at that point.  I was considering a dark grey to mark certain areas, but I've noticed on other prints that I've done that the color I'm considering isn't always needed since the color before actually accomplishes the same goal.

The next color, a dark shadow green will be printed this coming week.  I like this print, but will probably steer clear or alter future pieces where the colors are all so similar.  A very minor issue I have with this piece is the fact that these colors are so close to each other.  You want them to contrast against each other, but too much contrast is distracting.  I'm not entirely sure about the neon tubing on this piece as the colors are pretty close.  I used the initial lighter color to create the shadow color for the tubing and I'm wondering if I should've possibly gone darker.  It's obviously too late now, but this information with at least be useful for future pieces.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #lino #GreenStreet #Greensburg #PA #a #neon #HarleyDavidsonCafe #LasVegas #NV #Taco #TacoBar

Been a good couple weeks of progress.

Hi everyone!  So it's been a busy couple weeks since my last post.  I've been working fairly consistently. I've been managing printing a coiuple hours each Thursday.

My TACO print has seen a good bit of progress.  Seen above is the first green layer.  This layer is the highlight color for the neon tubing.  I've also printed the second green color (the normal/shadow color) of the neon tubing (see below).

The registration for this print has been very, very good and I can honestly say I'm surprised.  I didn't think my new registration jig would give me this much control.

The images above are both from the printing of the first neon green.  I needed a green that would be light enough so they subsequent greens could each go darker.  In total, there will be four different greens involved in this piece.  Only two other colors were used and they were both greys.

I also used the second green from the TACO on the grass for the Green Street print.  Due to the amount of colors in this print, I've reached a point where I'm not sure that it's even going to work.  It probably will, but since I have so many more colors....I don't even know how many.....the doubts in how it'll look at the end are starting to form in my head.  

Going to just keep pushing forward with it.

I also made a decision that this year I wanted to start using the various mounted lino blocks that I have.  For the past year, I've used unmounted lino on all my pieces and I unfortunately have a bunch of mounted blocks.

My first mounted project for this year is of the famous Flamingo logo for the Las Vegas casino.  I've almost completed the first section of carving.  There is only a small amount in the upper left that I need to do and then I'll be prepping the paper so I can hopefully print this upcoming Thursday.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #neon #printingprocess #reliefprint #updates #lasvegas