Animal Spirits part 7

Before going into the Studio this morning I gave some more thought to that bottle reflection.  Molly had mentioned yesterday that she liked the idea of it being very light, maybe even white, but I thought it would be too big a spot to be the only pure white in the whole composition.  Using cut paper pieces I had considered a pale blue (like the clear glass seen elsewhere) or a very pale yellow, but hadn't made up my mind yet.  Took an early morning trip to my local supermarket on another errand, but paused to look at glass bottles to see reflections, but mostly I saw just single white lines, probably from overhead fluorescent bulbs.  Back home I looked at a dark wine bottle and saw lines again (this time from around window shades) within slightly lightened mass more like the shape I had cut out.  That would be my solution- a light color within a darker color.

The last proof was on a piece of okawara, the Japanese paper I've been using for all the boardwalk prints. Tricky to color but I've had a lot of practice with it over the past few years.  The softest, thinnest, and darkest of the papers I printed this image on, the paper would have an effect on the color, for good and bad.  I just followed what I had done for all of the 3rd proof, except for that reflection on the shoulder of the bottle on the left.  I went with a thin stripe of yellow, shifting to red, then to dark brown, all colors found in other parts of the print.  Results can be seen above.  Molly was in and she also liked the decision.  She and I took a break for lunch at the invitation of our landlord, who had all the building tenants in for sandwiches, meatballs, chips, and cake.  We also took a timeout to crate a full grown tiger, but that's another story.

I still have one other animal spirit print- the cats.  Back home I did the coloring for that one.  Kept the cats the original colors.  Considered the tile checkerboard pattern again, but instead just went with a single color, and made the ball a large version of one of Scooter's favorites.  The plan is to mount this directly on wood, like the house shaped print from this past spring.  If it works, I'll submit both to the show tomorrow.