More Hair

The proof of the keyblock reveals that it prints oddly. The cherry is resisting a bit the ink and printed lightly it prints weakly despite the density of the Sumi I'm using. If I print firmly (really hard) I get an almost lithographic-like effect from the wood. The problem is the wavy hair is on the same block as my keyblock and they really should have been on separate blocks as the key block wants lighter pressure for the finer lines that might be damaged by the amount of pressure I'm using to print the hair.  I can sort of cheat using a weak baren to print the block and then go back with a stronger baren to print just the central part where the head and braid are.

It's hard to believe this is woodblock.

The new problem is that it looks great--it's a great tangled mess of hair--very like my wife's actual hair--but the braid definition is now hard to read as there is too much of the same black value where there should be more range.  I thought about it for a while and finally cut another block...the back of the cherry plywood that I got from McClains has a birch plywood veneer to the back side and while it was much harder to carve than the Shina it was more than adequate for the simple block I needed to cut (although there were some knots and voids under the veneer...
So printing this new block in a value darker than the braid yields something closer to my original drawing.

I also cut from a separate Shina block a plate with a simple solid braid/head shape by cutting out just the shape of the braid and head as a solid form.
This will serve to give the head and hair their base color--like a griseille painting the value will come from the black and white keyblock while the color will come from a brown glaze.

Now I just have to decide if I like this better than the way it was without it.
The tangled mass of hair is energetic and plays well against the flat colors of the torso and background....but I still have plans for those.

Here they are with color added:
To the left (orange blouse) is just the keyblock with the added brown base block.
Below (yellow blouse), is the same but with the addition of the braid outline block added last.