Ice Cream - Reduction Linocut - 3rd attempt
So yeah.....things were moving along with my 2nd attempt at the Ice Cream neon sign linocut that I was working on and then I started questioning some of the color placements. A couple of the colors should've been switched with one another. I really tried to not let that be a setback for me and tried ignoring these colors that were not exactly correct......I couldn't.
This piece is actually being done at the request of my wife and to be honest, I'd like it to be as close to perfect for her as possible. Each time I've worked with this piece I've made small discoveries that at the time I wish I could have discovered a step or two previously. So instead, I've restarted and applied that information to the next piece.
Luckily, I still had the original graphite drawing I did of the sign and was able to transfer it one more time to a new piece of linoleum. I also altered the shadows using references of photos online as well as pictures that I had taken myself and came up with what I feel is a decent rendition of shadows. The last ones were just not really doing it for me, but since I didn't have actual an actual photo with a nice cast shadow I had to try and make them up. I chose the easy way and just transferred the neon tubing areas of my drawing back onto the lino except I offset it's position.
This time around I spent a little more time studying photos or cast shadows and I'm much happier with what I've come up with.
In order to really speed up the process, I took my linoleum with me to my workplace and would work on it during break times. I taped a piece of tracing paper over top of the graphite image so that it wouldn't get accidentally erased by my arm. As I traced the drawing with a Sharpie marker I would discover areas that weren't very defined (the original drawing had already been transferred a couple times and wasn't leaving an easily visible transfer image). I would make little notes all over the tracing paper indicating where I needed to double check with both the drawing and original photo.
The "glue" in pink was an area that I started to carve and then realized I had made a mistake. Luckily, I had not completely the cut and was able to glue the piece back into place.
One of the issues that I've been running into with this piece is that the colors weren't always being placed properly. This is actually poor planning on my part. Yellows are fairly transparent and if you aren't careful with how they are layered then disaster is close behind. I try to mix a very small amount of white into my yellows so that they are less transparent, but this doesn't mean that previously printed colors aren't going to show up through the newer layer of ink.
This time around I decided that I was going to run colors test on each of the three different yellows that I used in the first two Ice Cream attempts. The image above shows the three colors and their unaltered hues on the sheet of paper. These colors are straight from the tube.
I also mixed each color with an equal amount of white to see how it would affect the value of the original color (1:1 ratio). I also mixed that original color at a 2:1 ratio with white to see how much lighter it became compared to the 1:1 ratio.
After I mixed all the colors and made swatches of those colors, I inked up strips of linoleum and ran them through the press. One set printed the darker three colors over the lighter three and then vice versa..printing the dark three over the light three. Though the results of these color tests are fairly close, there are several areas where certain similar colors (ex. light yellow overlayed with dark yellow vs. dark yellow overlayed with light yellow) showed significant differences in the values printed.
I've already torn my paper for this piece and hope to start it very soon. I'm excited to take another stab at this piece and hope that I've learned enough from my past mistakes that this time will leave me with a piece that I will be proud enough to offer to my wife. =)
#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #reliefprint #IceCream #neon #sign #Disney #CaliforniaAdventure #yellow #testing #printingprocess
