Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Adding a Brown to the Goldfinch, Heron and Killdeer Woodcut

American Goldfinch, Great Blue Heron and Killdeer at Manayunk Canal. Second Color Printing of Reduction Woodcut in Progress by Ken Januski.

If I had carried on over the last two days assuming that the weather report I saw on Sunday morning was accurate I'm not sure things would have changed all that much. I suppose the extreme, 'life-threatening' warnings forced me to resign myself to staying home all day Monday and Tuesday, thus giving me time to concentrate on the new reduction woodcut. But I wanted to work on it anyway, blizzard or no blizzard.

As it turned out we got less than 2 inches of snow in our neighborhood. I can't complain, though we'll have to keep waiting to try out our snowshoes. I'm sure that there are people north of us along the Atlantic Coast that are happy for all the warnings.

I've added a burnt umber here, a color I hadn't originally intended to use. I had hoped that the earlier yellow ochre  could suffice for all of the American Goldfinch and Killdeer as well as most of the shrubs and twigs. But I soon realized that wouldn't work. I needed to add a second brown. It's turned out a bit browner and less warm than I'd hoped but the color will change again once I add the blue and black.

As usual with a print, there are a million things I could complain about. But all in all it's proceeding more or less as I had hoped. But finishing is always the hardest part. So stay tuned for further developments. Print is 9x11 inches, by the way with the actual image 6x8 inches. It's printed with soon-to-be obsolete Daniel Smith Water-soluble Ink on Rives Heavyweight Paper.

In case you don't remember or didn't read the post regarding the Philadelphia Mid-Winter Bird Census of a few weeks ago this was based on observations that day along the Manayunk Canal in Philadelphia.

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