Well, I managed to finish clearing the 3rd block last night and this morning to dampen a few sheets of paper to see how it looks.
Here's the carved block of cherry and heres the proof. I wish the string were thinner but this is as thin as I can go (I can carve thinner lines with the toh/outlining knife but its the clearing chisels that still cause trouble for me and as this line needs to be continuous I didn't want to risk losing any. I need to clean up a few spots of the block where there's some unwanted spotting but I'm pretty happy with the additions.
The background is still a cobalt violet but a bit too dark, the striations are from too much paste and a cheap stencilling brush. The darker lines are still a mix of indanthrone blue and cobalt blue. I'm pretty happy with the composition and the hair is an improvement. When the time comes to print I'll try to better define the two different sets of lines for the hair (It should be enough just to change the order of printing and print the keyblock last instead of first). Now there's just to work out some color choices for the background block and keyblock.
I love the composition and line, very nicely done.
ReplyDeleteI like the additions very much. Just looked at the enlarged view and I see some lovely brushstrokes, both horizontal and vertical, in the background color. Did you do two impressions? I like the effect.
ReplyDeleteVery nice. The balloon definitely needed that beautiful curving line. It is exactly the thickness it needed to be IMHO. Lovely composition, too.
ReplyDeleteThanks all you early morning perusers,
ReplyDeleteThe striations in the violet background were done in two passes with a very pale violet/rice paste mix. Once vertically and then again horizontally. I'm trying for a little "plate tone" and will likely build up a background that has a bit of striations/gomazuri/mottling etc to keep it from being just white paper. This was with a really cheap brush and I may alternate goodbrush/cheap brush to see how it goes.
I don't think the line is too thin, it has a nice shape and enough tension to suggest bouyancy in the balloon.I'm wondering about your comment on the big chisel. Don't you clear with smaller tools and save the big clearing for areas that are say 3/4 of an inch or so away from the part that prints? Sometimes if there is something delicate I'll cut the shape with the angled Toh, then cut a sliver away from that. Like the traditional way of cutting hair (see the Baren Encyclopedia)
ReplyDeleteOops I meant too thick, I guess I'm a bit thick.
ReplyDeleteI use very small aisuki (bull-nose) chisels against the line and I have pretty small ones (3mm and 1mm) but I still find that sometimes I have to work at the edges, scalloping a bit and still the excised portion against the wood doesn't "pop" off anyway, can't tell if I'm under it/over it/etc and what ends up happening is the nice bevel of the cut gets lost and I end up with a sharp edge that either chips off or catches too much ink. More so with cherry than shina much, much more so with maple. (in fact it's hard to make a mistake on maple as slips of the chisel don't come off either.)
ReplyDeleteI gave up on the popping off technique and either do what I described above, angling another Toh cut or using the smallest U (tiny guy) use the Toh cut as a guide to make a another cut next to my print part, This keeps the edge clean, but I'm sure there is some reason one isn't supposed to do it!
ReplyDeleteI like it! I, too, think the balloon line is just right. And there's a lovely Medusa quality to the hair now. Bravo!
ReplyDelete