Boardwalk Food part 28

Nearing the end of the coloring process of this first proof, and thus moving on soon to the next, I decided it was a good day to resolve one necessary item- putting the zeppole sign back on the proofs. I inked my little piece of linoleum with some water based black and tried it on the first proof. With this heavy paper, the only way I could register it was to put the linoleum piece face down on the print and rub the back. The location was a little off, but it worked. For the other proof, on the much thinner okawara, I was able to put the linoleum face up on the table and carefully place the print face down on it. Again, not exactly perfect, but an acceptable placement, as can be seen to the right. I hung the okawara proof back on my tack board, and went back to coloring.

Earlier in the morning I had taken a photo from yesterday's progress and ran it through the primitive graphics program that came with my computer. I used it to test some color combinations at home, and brought the notes with me to the Studio in the afternoon. The second photo shows coloring based on some of the things I tried first on the computer today. Changed some of the colors inside the pizzeria, and lots of changes to both the interior and exterior of the ice cream stand. Made slight adjustments to the colors of a few items (sausage guy's tank top moves from orange to naples yellow, the bar floor tiles went from orange-red to red) and more radical changes to others (cotton candy eater's shirt went from pale pink to pale green, colors on the zeppole sign).


The area that has bothered me the most since I started coloring is the foreground grill and counter. The color of the counter of the place it's based on is a screaming yellow, too bold for the palette of this image. I went with a pale yellow found in elsewhere in the print (and in the rest of the series) but it's a little blah- too close to the boardwalk color and completely overwhelmed by the adjacent gray color. Molly was in the room to give a drawing lesson and I had asked her to look it over. One of her suggestions was to darken the boardwalk, so it would sit back more. Meanwhile, one of the things I tested this morning was putting the turquoise color there. What to do? Try both, half and half as seen below. Left side turquoise, and on the right an indigo wash over the boards. Both are an improvement over the previous situation, but both will require different changes to the grill to resolve that area of the print. I have a few days to think about it, and whatever I decide will be applied to the second (okawara) proof.