And Some Printing…

Friday, Saturday, Sunday

This weekend I worked further into carving my train block and was able to print a few proofs.  I was a happy with my experimentation in cutting, but I am not satisfied with the overall print.  I feel that it does explore different textures, however, it doesn’t really highlight the toy in any way and the image competes with the stark black of the background. 

I was also excited to print my second block on top of my large dollhouse image and I am very happy with the results.  I feel like the second outline gives the dollhouse a lot more presence and I’d like to think of this as a finished block/image. 

(7 hours)

Tuesday/Thursday

Due to the fact that I had done so much printing over the weekend, I decided to just truck through and continue.  I was able to print a few more color blocks with my dollhouse and even one with my rocking horse.  I am very pleased with my rocking horse image, although I would still like to make it a little more evident and correct some random marks in the corners of the block.  I also started a new woodcut of a teddy bear because I want to explore the texture of fur a little more.  I may continue to working on this block; however, after talking with Janie I may focus more on drawing for this coming week.

(6 hours)

On Thursday I was also able to talk with Janie for a while and she gave me some great ideas along with a great artist to look at, Carol Wax.  Wax is able to create a sense of place for an object, even when it is floating in space.  Her extreme use of lights and darks create a very stark contrast and I would really like to work on my ability to create shadows within my own wood blocks. 

We also discussed what I needed to do for this coming week and I need to resort back to drawing.  I seem to feel the urge to immediately start carving an image and what I really need to do is take the time to workout the perfect image to carve.  So for this week, and weekend, I hope to sketch a lot on large sheets of paper.  I will probably still focus on my toy train, but make more of an effort to highlight different angles and viewpoints.  Also, I am may continue working further on my train carving because I don’t find it that successful, and may become tired of drawing at one point.

To answer some questions…

I have been expanding my horizons more on the types of toys I am going to use, but mainly they will focus on classic American toys.  I say I am expanding because originally I was just going to focus on wooden toys, but I am now experimenting with a metal slinky and a furry teddy bear.

I also planed on using little color, but after this weekends experimentation I may have changed my mind.  I really like my yellow and brown dollhouse, but I do still like pure black and white images.