Boardwalk Tattoo part 33

Back to the Studio for a little while this afternoon with my two proofs. Started with the first proof, trying some of the ideas suggested last night. I darkened the legs on the table. Liked it. Thought about the idea of putting some dark color toward the bottom of the right side, under the table. This kind of thing, a dark color fading into the scene, is not uncommon in traditional Japanese prints, and I found many such examples in the Hiroshige book I had with me. The only question was the color. I didn't want anything that was too similar to the color of the table, and I thought there was enough blue already. I looked through the book and found an example with a dark red, which seemed like it might work. I mixed up some alizarin crimson with black and put in a gradated wash along the bottom edge. Not sure that it helps. Molly came by to do some of her own work and I showed her the results. She felt the dark red stripe didn't really add much, maybe because the shape isn't related to the table. And she agreed that the lighter color on the customer's jeans in the first proof worked a little better, but otherwise she liked the colors in general, especially in the 2nd proof.

Then I went to the 2nd proof. Darkened the table legs. Put a wash of very light indigo and white on parts of the jeans to make them less bold while reinforcing the modelled shape. I mixed two colors for the table and put them in place, one a little more orange for the left side panel, one a little more neutral for the right panel, matching the accidental results of the correction I made on the first proof. Left off at there today, though I'll consider further work tomorrow. Above are both copies of the print for the purpose of comparison.