Monday, February 27, 2017

Five O'Clock Shadow



I like to joke that I have a "serious" line of work and a "frivolous" one.
This would fall in the latter category but these silly works, made without thoughts about meaning or purpose always have a spontaneous feeling rather than being fussy or forced.   And I think if they still make ME smile, then I think that's a good thing as they'll probably make others smile too.

This is a small work--the image is just 2" x 2" (5cm x 5cm) and is based on one of my many scribbles and doodles in one of my sketchbooks.

 
I had meant to do this as pure color woodblock. But cutting all those little dots for the beard stubble takes time and I really thought they'd be perfect done with an etching so the drawing was etched on a small zinc plate.
Unlike the previous Lampreys/Valentine prints, rather than using aquatint for the colors, I went ahead and cut several small wood blocks for the color passages.


So this ended up being Japanese woodblock and hard-ground etching on zinc and three color blocks (Shina) and was printed both with a baren (the color plates) and a small press.



These are test prints (rather than true Artist proofs),  and I think I need to darken the lines in a few places and decide on how much plate tone I want as I try to print a reasonably consistent edition once I decide which one I like best.

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