Belmar and the Railroad part 3

Had another busy week since the last update on this project.  In 2014 that automatically includes at least one significant snow storm (this past Monday), and this time of year there is a lot of school stuff to deal with.  I've also been putting together a woodcut class to run in March at the Belmar Arts Council.  The weather being what it is this year, I figured it would be safer to work on this from home.  Gradually I cut the block, finishing it last night.  Most of it went well, but the surface had some breakdowns, and unfortunately, these were in the areas with the most details.  Still, I had gotten the block to the above state, just what I had envisioned a few weeks ago.

Since I'm about a week behind my planned schedule for this project (having to devote several hours each week for the past month to shoveling snow will do that), I moved right on to pulling some proofs today.  The first proof (above) was clean and good enough for the card artwork.  I went ahead and tried a second one, and had another chunk of the surface break down.  In a few days I'll use the second proof to test the color palette I have in mind.  I'll apply what I learn from that to coloring the first proof.  Assuming that turns out as expected, I'll turn that one over to the BAC to be converted to the digital file to be used on the postcard, poster, and whatever other promotion will be done.  When the ink on the block is dry, I may recut the damaged areas- won't be exactly the same as the first proof, but it may salvage it for a second edition.

I also used part of today for another BAC related thing- submitting this year's entry for their annual juried show.  Don't have much recent stuff that I haven't shown at the Boatworks already, so I went back into the past.  One of the pieces was created a decade ago, and the other goes back to the last century.  This is the first general show there being done entirely by digital submission, so this morning I reshot the two pieces and I sent in the jpegs and online form in the afternoon.  We'll be informed of the juror's decisions in about a week.  If one of my pieces is chosen, I'll provide the story behind it.