Shadow Green added to the Diner!

Quickly closing in on the end of this particular project!!

Even with the small registration issues that have plagued me since the first color, I'm very excited to see this starting to come together.  One of the amazing parts of reduction printmaking is that even though you have an idea to how it's going to look at the end....you never really know.  The colors will be different than the reference that you are using and at times during the mid-color stages you really start to question whether it's going to even work out.

It can be a real grind trying to get to the end and many times the thought of scrapping the idea floats into your head.  Usually though, things really start to turn around as you start to reach the final couple colors.  The excitement at that point makes you completely forget the issues you were having the questions that were starting to form in your head.  In the end, it almost always turns out for the better and as an artist you really come up with something that even surprises you.

A couple weeks back when I discovered my mis-registration, which oddly occurred with the very first color (yellow).  Almost every color since then has lined up with each other.  I'm not sure how that works, but apparently for this piece, that's how it's going to work out.

Here is a detail shot of the dark green shadow areas that were printed this afternoon.  Originally, I planned on using a straight Pthalo Green for the shadow, but then started thinking it was going to be too dark (as it is...pretty dark).  I tried mixing some green into some white, but unless I was printing Lucky Charms marshmallow prints that color wasn't going to work out.  Instead I used that color and mixed in large amounts of the Pthalo Green.  I eventually came up with the color shown.  Initially I wanted a darker green, but I'm very happy with the one that I printed and glad that I didn't go darker.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #Diner #neon #sign #printing #printingprocess #shadowgreen #Somerset #pa #swpa

Sky Blue update for the Diner!

Not at a whole lot of photos for this update, but happily the sky blue for the Diner print has been printed.  I'm now down to 3 colors to print: a dark green, dark blue and black.  The registration kept mostly in line with what has already been printed which is good.

These last 3 colors I'm a little concerned about though.  They are all very dark colors and I'm worried that the dark blue and the black will actually be so close in color that there will be no noticeable change where they meet.  I may lighten up the dark blue to a color that will contrast better with the black.  The dark green is merely the shadow areas on the already green printed area on the print.

I can actually feel the end of this print coming up and it makes me want to continue printing, but the light blue needs some time to dry first.....patience.

Just prior to writing this post, I finished carving the light blue areas away so I'm practically ready to go now.

I've also torn down paper for the Green Street print and the La Rose Shop.  Trying to figure out if I want to print the La Rose Shop normally (not attached to anything) or if I want to mount it to a board as I've done with the Green Street.  Guess I'll see how I'm feeling when that time comes.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #Diner #Somerset #PA #neon #sign

Diner Green!

So I printed my Diner Green this past week and I'm really happy with how it turned out.  As soon as I finished printing and cleaning up I immediately started carving away the green areas because I now only have 4 colors left to print and I'm getting excited.  Next up will be the sky blue and I'll follow that with a dark green, dark blue and finally black.

I'll be honest, I was having doubts about this piece after having the registration not work out so well during my last printing, but I'm back on track with it...just a few less well registered ones than I would've liked.

I've also started yet another piece and with this one I'm going to try a new registration technique that I read about.  This is a 7x12" piece that I'm just going to title "Green Street".  Its a shot that I took off of my front porch and up the road from me.

I'm a large fan of urban-ish plein air paintings and have wanted to try one as a reduction print.  I love the way that those artists are able to capture the falling light and shadows and this will be my first attempt at that kind of subject matter.  It has so far proven to be more difficult than I was thinking.  I keep wondering if I should've gone larger, but this piece of linoleum was a left over and I wanted to use it for something.

I had read about linocut artists mounting their linoleum on boards and then taping down their registration pins to that same board.  It is generally supposed to offer perfect registration....soooooo....I'm going to give it a shot.  I bought permanent double sided carpet tape and attached it to a piece of chipboard and then placed the lino piece down over top of it and pressed it firmly onto the tape.  My piece of lino is now permanently attached to the chipboard.

Hopefully I really like how this works.  I bought 10 very large sheets of chipboard and it would be unfortunate if I didn't want to use them.  The piece of chipboard is about 10x16.  I was hoping that be keeping it smaller I'd have an easier time carving the lino.  I tend to flip my lino in every conceivable direction while carving.

I'm going to be able to work this coming Thursday on these pieces so hopefully I'll have a quicker update than I've been having.  I've kind of hit a spell of creating new pieces, but not getting anywhere with the ones that are already ready to proceed with.  Soon enough I'll have more work than I ever wanted.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #Diner #neon #sign #Somerset #PA #GreenStreet #Greensburg #pleinair #houses

Diner with some other updates

Last week I printed the next color of the Diner print.  This image makes the color look very blue, but it's closer to a light green (sea foam green) color.  Unfortunately, there was some registration issues and now only 2 of the 10 are still registered good.  If you look closely at this picture in the bottom left you can actually see the shadow yellow which was the second color printed.

I'm disappointed, but still want to forge ahead with this piece and once I'm done then I'll take some time to figure out what I want to do with it.  I'm starting to consider other ways of working with the registration so that these issues do not occur as much.  I have some ideas, I'm just not sure which direction I'm going to head with them.

I also decided that I was going to revisit an old reduction that I began a good while back.  Shortly after buying my first at home printing press I started a neon "B".

 

These are no pics from that edition.  I wound up moving on from it because I was working with mounted linoleum and this piece was unmounted.  It was just partial laziness of not wanting to alter the pressure on the press.  To be honest though I did not like the color that I had put on the last time I printed (see picture on the right).  So my time away was to see if I felt differently later and/or to not have to change the pressure.

I was going to start to finish it last week and pulled it out to look at.  Most of the Sharpie lines have disappeared on the lino making it difficult to figure out what needs carved...or if I have already carved what I needed to.  To be honest it is quite hideous and the order that I printed the color was a little off and it appears that on the last color there were significant registration errors on most of the prints.

I've always liked the looks of this piece so I decided....

...to start over.  Luckily I keep all of my artwork and ideas for each project after I finish them and file them away.  This is exactly the same as the original, but I think I'm going to alter the tubing this time to avoid the thin line that runs down the center which shows the orange line.  We'll see though as I do like how it was originally turning out (see above picture on the left).

 

I'm also starting a landscape that will be a multi-colored reduction print as well.  The left is my reference photo from my trip to Utah.  I think it was actually taken while I was driving.  The right is a photoshopped version where I created dual layers and altered one of them and then reduced it's opacity so that the original would show through.  I plan on doing a tracing and then using it to identify how and where I'll simply the image to better suit a linocut.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #updates #Diner #LightGreen #neon #sign #B #Buca #Utah #Utahlandscape #landscape

Shadow Red - Diner update!

 

I printed the next color on the Diner print this morning.  At first I used a non-mixed Quinacridone Red, but it didn't have the necessary contrast to the red beneath it.  I mixed some violet into the red and came up with a good color that was darker, but not too dark that the contrast was too great.

Though the colors on this image are a good bit altered due to the light from the window, this detail shot shows how the shadow red looks on the letters themselves.  I'll be starting the carving after finishing this post so I can print the next color...though I'll admit, I'm not completely sure which I'm going to do next.  It's either light green or sky blue.

This is a ghost image of the block after I was finished.  I printed a copy off onto newsprint to help clean off the block.

I've also been slowly working on the La Rose Shop image and the inking of the image with Sharpie markers.  The bricks are going slower than anticipated, but I want to make sure that they don't angle oddly with each other.  I'll also be coloring the letters in with different colors so that I can not confuse what gets carved and what doesn't.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #Diner #neon #sign #red #shadow #LaRoseShop #inking

Diner and La Rose updates

 

Okay.....so my intended update to this post took longer than expected.

I ran a second printing of the red which I had missed areas of initially and the second pass red is almost dry.  I gave it a touch test last night and it was still slightly tacky.  I realized that I'm also half way done with this piece which is pretty exciting.  

Here is an up close look at one of the letters.  Showing the neon tubing and the cast shadows on the yellow.  Beside it is a carved away "E".  I've removed all the "red" areas and have left only the areas that are the cast shadow from the pieces that hold the neon tubing away from the surface.  I've also carved away the area that needed the second red printing, but there is no use showing that as it was just a tiny vertical segment (in the image of the carved full block above...it's the vertical line on the right of the block...I merely widened it.)

Also......

Transferred the tracing of the La Rose Shop neon sign onto linoleum the other night and started tracing it in Sharpie Marker.  It is sized at 9x22 inches.  I originally was shooting for 10x22, but due to a cutting error with the linoleum I had to scale it down slightly.  I don't think that that is a bad thing though...the only thing that was actually lost was just some brick work.

This piece appears to be no more than maybe 5 or 6 colors..probably six, but we'll see. 

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #Diner #neon #sign #Somerset #PA  #SummitDiner

#LaRoseShop #Greensburg #PA

Diner update - Carving

Current update for the Diner print has me working on nothing more than carving away the neon tubing.  At this point I've gotten everything, but parts of the R and the D has yet to be started.  I'm thinking that come Saturday I'll be able to print the red color which is the interior color of the letters.

Originally I was hoping to get the printing done by no later than Thursday.  My wife though has both of the same days off that I have this week so we've decided to head out of town for both days.  We are planning on heading out to Columbus, OH to go see the Chinese Lantern Festival that is currently being shown at the Ohio State Fairgrounds (or whatever it's called...I'm honestly not to sure).

My next update should include the printed red as well as a couple pictures from the festival.  Until then, have fun!

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #Diner #neon #sign #SomersetPA