A History of Art part 35

An exciting day today- the first day of cutting. Started with the top and bottom borders. Then I decided to deal with the negative space, specifically the sky. As I looked at it, I decided that the sky areas are an awful lot of empty space to be filled with blue, really too much. Some clouds would break up that space, make it easier to ink and print, too. At first I looked at Bruegel's original painting, but the clouds were a bit too heavy for the mood I'm seeking. Since today was a gorgeous day, I went outside and sketched some of the puffy clouds in the overhead sky. I added these to the drawing. I figure do this now, because I can always take them out later if I don't like them. (other parts of the drawing changed- I added a new gull based on one I photographed at the boardwalk the other day) With the sky settled, I began cutting on the right side, around Castelnuovo and the highway signs, working my way up the tower and over the top, ending today at the upper left corner.

It turned out that the surface veneer is firmly glued down over every inch. The advantage of this is that it's less likely that detail areas will flake or splinter off. The disadvantage is that cutting out wide areas with the chisel takes a bit more physical effort. My index finger was getting sore, so I gave up where I did, rather than risk getting a blister. The gouges caused no discomfort, so I just used those for the last portion of the day. Things should be fine when I return to the Studio, maybe as soon as tomorrow.