Mermaid Piece part 17

Yeah it's been a while since I had time in the Studio, or anything else to write about.   The biggest obstacle has been work.  As we move through the semester, college requires more and more of my time.  For example, this past week I had papers to grade, reports to write, a print project to prepare for (I'll admit I like that part), and individual students to help.  As for my other job, my last day was a few days ago, so at least that won't be taking up so much time.  Some of the things I wrote about early in the month are still evolving, such as the idea of an east/west print show to be held in Belmar. A new item is that I have been invited to put two works into the latest Spring Lake show, so I spent time this week rephotographing the art, writing statements, etc.  More details will appear here after I deliver the work next week.

Giving me a little more time right now is Thanksgiving.  The holiday itself is almost a week away, but it will give me a week off from school, a very welcome break. And with that time, I figure it's time to get back to my current project, the mermaid carving.

The prints that I made from the block are finished and dry.  And I used them and the block to demonstrate my old process to my woodcut student, so now there is no reason not to finish this up.  Got up to the Studio in the afternoon and pulled out my supply of vintage water soluble relief ink, technically a collector's item now.  Yellow, blue, red, and white will suit my needs today.

The last time we saw the block it looked as it does above.  The color on it was unintentional, a side effect of the rubbing process I was using.  Not intended, but not a problem as I knew I'd be coloring over it eventually.  It does give a clue to where those colors will be.

As with the prints I was making from this thing weeks ago, this will be a multistep process.  I'm using  water soluble relief ink, which I figured was the ideal thing to use on a wood surface, at least of what I have in my possession.  And mixing those colors is pretty much the same as mixing paint.  This first step will all be done with a paintbrush.  I started with the skin, on arms/hands, face, and torso.

Took the leftover skin color and added yellow and red.  At first it was used to do the two starfish, then more of the yellow and red were added to make the base color for the hair.  Used the brush to work it down into all the lines I had cut through the hair.  On all the parts with skin and hair, I used the brush to add the appropriate color to the edge of the birch wood.  Don't yet know how this will be hung, but I assume the wood edges will be seen.

There are serious grooves cut into the tail as well.  Into those grooves I painted a dark blue color, straight phthalo blue ink.  After all of today's ink dries (it's thick so it may take some time, despite being water based ink), I will use hard brayers and thin ink to add light blue-green ink to top layer of the mermaid tail, and lighter highlights to the mermaid's hair over all those darker parts in the grooves.

At the end of the session, I had the mermaid sculpture to this point.  I decided to save the sand dollar and shell until the other ink is dry, so as not to contaminate the colors, and that can be easily done with a brush at that point.  The hair and tail definitely need to dry before the next phase, which will take advantage of the relief surface and be rolled on with a brayer, the darker ink down in the grooves  acting as shadows.