Year of the Monkey: My Mandrill is finished.

Here is the finished print and a variant.
With 60 copies in the stack, each color took about 2 hours to print--the simple color shapes went a little faster while those with two colors on the same block took longer.

I've also included below how each block printed alone in the sequence in which the print was put together.

Sumi keyblock. Lots of paste on the boxwood made for very visible brushstrokes.

A pretty hot-pink nose and face mask . Some viewers found this image provocative.

Cobalt Teal and a little Ultramarine Blue with enough paste to make it very transparent.

A Naples/Hansa Yellow Bokashi to the Mane

A "mix-colors-until-you-get-a-brown-you-like" Brown.

Transparent Sumi Batman mask and Hansa Yellow

Phthalo Blue and lots of paste--Bokashi graded printing.

   
The last color, this blue bokashi to the Mandrill's mask, really made all the difference.

Suddenly, the mask and face really pops and gets an emphasis that it didn't have before.
I used the same block for the background, the blue bokashi overprinting the yellow to make a green.
But after 5 copies, I decided there were already enough colors and left that corner alone so most of the prints have a yellow "sky".
(It is the year of the FIRE monkey, and the original plan, scrapped for the same reason, was to overprint to make a sunset orange....).

I think I signed 50 prints today after trimming the paper and writing the titles.
A few are already gone and another 35 are destined for the BAREN Forum's Chinese Zodiac Exchange participants. I think that means that after a few more go to family, and a couple of loyal supporters and another handful of regular collectors that I won't have enough to go around.....and so I'm probably not finished with this thing after all.

This is not a pipe.

I posted this teaser photo of my Year of the Monkey print. It's a proof of one of the color blocks and I  immediately started to get understandable comments about the fleshy pink color and suggestive nature of my image.  I just wanted to take a moment to assuage any fears about possible sexual content or phallic imagery.
I want people to know that if I decide to make something look like a penis, there won't be ANY doubt.
Guess which one of these is NOT a penis?