Boardwalk Showers part 20

I managed to take care of a few tasks before work this morning, freeing me to go directly to the Studio right after. I found a sheet of some kind of heavy printmaking paper (no watermark or label on the bag) on my supply shelf, and decided to try proofing my new block. I prefer a heavier paper for these first proofs, since I may need to recolor some areas as I try to figure out what will work best, and that's just not possible with the okawara that I use for the editioned prints in the series. I inked it, put the paper on top, and started the hand rubbing. After the first pass I picked up a corner to check and re-ink the light areas. After more rubbing I checked the result and knew I was done- the paper had slipped.

This block is mostly line work, with very little solid areas of black. The good part with that is that thin lines are much easier to ink and print, while broad areas of black are hard to get evenly black on the first try. And most of these lines turned out fine. The bad part of a mostly line block is that there is much less ink to adhere the paper to the block while printing. While the soft tissue thin Japanese paper will stick with no problems, a stiff printmaking paper may not, and I noticed a little bit of double exposure lines happening. There's no way to line it up perfectly again, so that was all for this proof. It could be worse- the only parts that have real problems are the borders, and while this one would never be suitable for exhibiting, it will do fine for the purposes of evaluating the cutting and trying out colors. The resulting proof is shown below.

For now it's drying in the Studio, and should be stable enough to start coloring by the weekend. My first feelings about the print are that I mostly like it, though I think I might want to reduce the amount of shading lines on some of the figures. Keep some of them, but do most of the shadow effect with color. Still haven't settled on a color scheme yet, but I have a few days to decide on something.

From there I went home and enjoyed the rest of my jambalaya in honor of Mardi Gras. Didn't take any photos of it, but this photo from last year gives you the general idea.