I have had some pretty clear ideas but as my children, spouse, and pretty much anyone who has seen the prints in the last few days have pulled out my favorite as the immediate discard so I'm wavering about whether to pay attention to my inner voice or heed the growing number of voices that agree with Alex the 14 year-old pragmatist,
"Dad, that's just plain UGLY".
My Beetle and grub prints were pretty "ugly" too (but I like them a lot) so with this print I wanted to do something a little more visually appealing but the yellow version risks being too pretty.
Here is yesterday's test of the last block which I coated lightly with matte acrylic medium proofed on drawing paper. (This is cheap paper so the surface and printing quality is very different from the carefully printed/good paper version from my last post.) I've printed a thin layer of aquamarine/pthalo blu over the yellow background.
The sealed block no longer prints the two vertical seams but gives a pronounced speckling, goma-zuri effect. It would need another impression to deepen/darken the background color.
The next block will be printed multiple times in overlapping colors/unevenly to try to get a little more depth. The colors that come next will greatly affect the overall look and balance; If I push the blue and earth-green pigments it will be more "natural" and there will be a little of the Blue-Orange interaction.
If I print again with violet/mauve it goes towards the brown and gets more moody.
If I print again with a deeper yellow it will stay pretty much as is.
Here are most of the proofs done for color testing/registration over the last few serious printing trials:.
I favor the taupe/brown/purply ones; Alex a dark green background in the bottom row. B likes the blue one at second row down/second from the left (the one shown at the top of the post).
The taupe one at top is the one everyone hates.
I welcome thoughts/opinions before I charge ahead..........
I seem to remember you wanted the maple to 'glow'? I really liked the yellow and I would lean more toward what you are showing(that B likes)and use that dark green (that Alex likes)either mottled in or bokashi-ed in to give some depth/shadow. I like the bottom right corner too.........
ReplyDeleteI think it's really hard to tell from the small images. I agree with Linda, except I'm not crazy about the bottom right and I think the 3rd one in on top has possibilities with some lightening and texture.
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