Sunday, August 1, 2010

Stains and colors



I printed some sample proofs from my fresh keyblock.
The original idea was a simple black and white line drawing with the red blood stain on the white shirt. (I thought of carving different color stains --coffee, blood, etc but that seemed pushing it a bit too far).
But with some proofs on hand I decided to color some in with watercolor.
The one on the bottom R is my favorite;it would be sort of a halftone, bluegray--all the colors would be shades of grey except for the stain; the others are as can be seen above--I like the yellow tie more than the blue one.
The risk is that the subject--the blood spot--might be lost if too much energy and interest is directed at the necktie and colors.

The red stain will be cut off the key block and recarved so it will be much more noticeable. I'm also planning on adding a bit of alcohol to the color to make it seep a bit.

Any favorites/comments before I carve the next block?

8 comments:

  1. i agree.. bottom right is what i like best, too .. good luck on your next work! =)

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  2. I like bottom left, blue tie. Just my humble opinion. You could even add a light blue to the shirt, which might make the blood stain stand out even more.

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  3. I agree that too much color/intensity on the tie reduces the impact of the stain a lot. I would go for the tones of gray option.

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  4. I like the grey one as well. Looks like a half-tone as you say. Doesn't pull focus from the red stain.

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  5. Well, one of the nice things about woodblocks, especially if you don't print reductive, is you can print them over and over till you like what you get or just get sick of them.
    I have some 8X12 Shina blocks; I'll glue two of these down on each side of one and try black and white keyblock and red stain; and then go with one of the others.

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  6. Hi,
    congratulations!!
    Blue, gray, yellow ... or not.
    beautiful work.
    Angelo.

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  7. I don't know if it's just my computer or what, but the blue tie makes the red stain just 'pop'! I agree with Daniel, you might even try a light blue shirt and see if that pops it even more.

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