Belmar and the Railroad part 2

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post on the topic of this train show, so time for an update.

Those two weeks were very busy.  They include the first two weeks of the spring semester, so the first and second meetings of the semester for each class.  In that time there were at least three snowstorms that I can recall, each of which required a bit of snow shoveling.  There were also some doctor appointments, and two visits to the DMV to resolve an issue with my driver's license.  Been trying to find an ideal time to run the next series of woodcut classes in Belmar, trying to accommodate the most potential students.  And yes, I've been working on things related to the train show, including my woodcut for the postcard.

The previous rough sketch I had done was on a page in a sketchbook, which I had done in a portrait orientation.  However, even though this train view wouldn't be quite horizontal as the one used in my mural proposal, I still felt this would work better as a horizontal image.  Pat had sent me the proportions used by the postcard company, so a few weeks ago I was in the Studio long enough to prepare a woodblock.  Much of that next week was busy with school and snow, but not a day passed when I didn't think about the image I wanted to make.

Last week I began drawing.  First I did a pencil sketch on paper of the scene as I expected it to look in the final print.  It is relatively close to one of the photos I shot last summer, though I did adjust a few proportions and locations to better suit my composition.  Once I felt that was ready, I put a grid over the top, which would aid me in transferring my train station scene to the block, which would involve both reducing size by about 25%, as well as doing a mirror reversal, showing the train going from right to left.  Working at home around other tasks, I made adjustments and got it to a satisfactory state (above).

My original goal was to have it printed and a color example to show the committee by today, but all that stuff mentioned above didn't let that happen.  I was able to at least start the cutting, and so far this block is cutting nicely.

Today we had a meeting in Belmar to discuss the progress on this show, this time bringing in our contact from the town historical society, which is going to be running a bunch of related programs of their own at the same time.  There had been a bunch of e-mails back and forth over the past week, which had helped us settle a lot of details before this, but it was good to all be in one place, and we could discuss a lot of issues and concerns related to the historical part of the show.  Our history guy seems very knowledgable about the subject, and has some experience organizing shows and talks, and he seems like he's going to have his part, which will include the seeking of railroad related artifacts, under control.  The traditional art show stuff will fall our committee at the BAC.

Although it wasn't needed for today, I did bring my in progress block to show people, as well as the train themed print above.  It's from the late 90's, one of two dozen prints in my Birds and Seeds series, in which each image had a reference to a bird and a seed in some form.  The series was originally inspired by my time living in the midwest, and long lines of ADM owned railcars passed through town almost daily.  Most often it was tankers full of corn syrup, but I saw quite a few grain hoppers like the one shown above.  I had to do a bit of research to find a rail car logo with a bird, eventually finding this Missouri-Pacific symbol.  I don't remember seeing one there in Carbondale, but being only about a dozen miles from the state line, it's possible that some of their cars may have had occasion to pass through our town.  I have this print already in a frame, and when this show was announced, I figured it would be the ideal piece to submit.  I brought it with me to the meeting to demonstrate how my block drawing of the train would translate into a colored woodcut.  Everyone liked both my finished print and my block drawing, and they are excited to see the finished piece.  I expect to have that done within a week.