Got some updates to share!

Hello everyone!  These updates are becoming tougher and tougher as my regular jobs summer kicks in.  We are generally much busier in the summer months and though I'm still managing to get some work done, getting these updates out is a bit tougher.  Perhaps I'll attempt at smaller updates about individual projects.

To start off though, this past week I had the wonderful experience of selling my first "Diner" print to a dear college friend of mine.  I haven't seen him in quite a few years, but he had expressed interest in possibly buying one of the prints.  We met up for lunch and I must say that I had a wonderful time playing catch up with him.  We were both Art Education students and had a good many classes together and roomed together during a pre-student teaching experience in Philadelphia.  Even though a good bit of time has passed (almost 10 years out of college) and I had concerns that I wouldn't know what to talk about, I truly had a fantastic time meeting with him.  I am very proud that my Diner print has now found a home with him and hope to keep more in touch with him as the years go by.

 

I've also been spending some time working on the neon "B" project.  This past Saturday I printed the bright yellow of the neon tubing and like almost everytime I print in yellow...I had a problem.  The image on the bottom right above shows nice ink ridges that were formed when I ran the print through the press and pulled the paper off.  I've experienced this type of ink problem before with my failed Cafe print (which coincidentally used this same yellow ink).  I added some tack reducer to loosen up the ink and reduced the pressure on the press some more and still continued getting this issue.

I wound up scrapping an entire pile of ink and restarting from scratch.  I usually gather a large pile of ink and then break it down into what I need since I try to work with multiple prints starting with a same base color at the moment.  This time around I reduced the pressure of the press, lightened up the amount of ink I was putting on the lino and did a little bit of hand burnishing.

Thankfully that worked out for me and the bottom left image is the current status of that print.  I have already carved away the neon tubing and before starting this post, began the process of going over the lino block to make sure I didn't miss anything that needed carved.

I've also been spending some time on my Utah landscape.  Using that same yellow as with the "B", I added some Sepia to darken it up a bit to create a darker grass color.  I wanted a Yellow Ochre style of color and managed something that was a little darker, but I felt that it was perfectly fine for what I was doing.

I don't feel that there is much exciting happening with this particular print quite yet, but within the next color of two things should really start to take shape.

I'll do my best to work on smaller updates to keep anyone reading this a little appraised of the situation of my work.  Thanks for reading.

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