Number four finished (Wisdom)… finally. This final image of the series took a lot longer than I was aiming for due to a variety of unforeseen ‘obstacles’, but now I can put them all aside for a few days, hopefully printing them next week sometime. Really looking forward to seeing how they turn out, but also concerned that I may have to cut into them some more/deeper as there is a lot of pretty shallow gouging on all of them and the ink may pick up on areas not supposed to be printed as well as miss details that are too fine to hold ink.

Also, I’m only planning a print run of maybe five or six editions of each one in the series… watch this space.

 

Well, I was pretty much on track to complete one a week until a wonderful cold bug swept through the household. Consequently I had to take a day off last week for myself, another for my grandson, and even when I was in the studio working it’s hard to cut detail between coughs and sneezes! Anyway, pretty much over it all now, but the third of the series, ‘Humor’ (below) has run into this week to complete. It didn’t help when the inner monologue in me suggested giving one of the guys in the piece a striped shirt!

So, one more to go (Wisdom) and then hopefully the fun part of printing over the next week or so – although my paper hasn’t arrived yet 🙁

Two of the four ready to print and the third in the series about a third cut. I want to print the whole set together to ensure a consistency, so another week or so and they should be good to go – exciting! Still an issue with my over detailed compositions. I really should have reduced them more than I did, but as I’m over 50% through them, I’ll just persevere!

Nothing really new to show here, although the angle and light of these two shots of #1 (Ignorance) and #2 (Knowledge) does really emphasize the gouge marks nicely.

One and a third out of the set of four cut. Such a lot of detail in each one (my fault, I know!) that they are taking a lot longer to gouge than I initially thought. A combination of not always being clear where exactly I need to cut, a sore neck from leaning over, and procrastinating…. sorry, I mean researching 😉 anyway, here is a photograph of progress. Now back to work, I suppose.

So here is the first (work in progress) 9″ x 12″ lino from a series of four studies of ‘the barfly’. I didn’t want to use specific individuals as the focus of attention in case they offended anyone. Instead I opted for fictional characters, but all loosely based on observations from a collection of people. The four prints are titled Wisdom, Knowledge, Humor and Ignorance – but their narration is actually interpreted as the old barfly, the one who thinks he knows everything (the one in the photo), the comedian and the one who invariably drinks his troubles away every night.

I figure it’s going to take me a week to cut each of the four pieces. Then I can print them all together. What I wasn’t prepared for was the neck ache while I’m gouging! I can just imagine coming back off this sabbatical with chronic neck pain!

More progress as it happens. G.

Okay, so after a lot of visual research and a couple of ‘on-site’ background photo-shoots, I finally developed four compositions I was happy with, focused around the observations of the ‘barfly’ character. All fictitious, but also with hints of individuals from my life and social circles. The concept of the series is that each piece loosely narrates pseudo-traits associated with them; knowledge, humor, wisdom, and ignorance.

My aim is to transfer onto linoleum next week and then start cutting, but then the problems start because 1. I think I have initially included too many details on all four compositions. I won’t know for sure until I try to reduce each one, 2. unlike my last relief print series, I’ve been far more vague on where to cut with these pieces – just hoping that I can figure it out as I go! Still, it’s all part of the challenge I suppose. And 3. I usually feel more comfortable working on one thing at a time, however in this case I want to be cutting at least two of the four at the same time (no, not literally with a gouge in both hands!), so this goes against my comfort zone way of doing things. Anyway, here is a shot of the four pencil comps ready to be traced down onto the linoleum (next week), *the bottom right one has already been turned over and taped down.