As the rain falls outside I wonder how the lambs in Wales are coping but they have thick oily coats which will help and are no doubt already accustomed to the vagaries of the weather. I'm sure I'll return to my sketches for print ideas in the future but in the meantime need to finish the rook print I started some weeks ago......
Small pencil sketches to help me work out the design and possible colours
The final sketch I have decided to use which is the same size as my lino block 30x20 cm
The next step is to work out the colours to use which takes some thinking about when doing a reduction print as it means you have to be very sure of what you're trying to achieve in the finished print. Once you've cut out a colour there's no going back. You also have to be spot on when aligning the block and paper for all the different colours which is quite a challenge and I suspect has reduced many a printmaker to tears......
Image transferred onto lino
Lino block after first stage of printing the blue sky. Sides and top have been cut out.
The next colour will be yellow and will make a green hedge just behind the rook's head if all goes well. I made a paper mask to block out the rook's head as I'm hoping to keep part of the eye area yellow. The white area of all the eyes can be cut out now but as yellow is the next colour to be printed I need to make sure the head is white at this stage or the bird would have ended up with a green eye as the yellow goes over the blue. Not exactly complicated but time consuming in the planning stage.......
By the time of my next turn on the blog I hope to have this finished but as I said, there could well be tears before bedtime if my registration plate isn't good enough.
Reduction printing is quite a challenge and some people prefer to make a block for each colour which also needs to be planned very carefully and demands great accuracy when printing, but then again - nobody said it would be easy!
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