The Narwhal part 15

Woke up early this morning to use the bathroom and afterwards looked outside- all was very wet.  Not a surprise as rain had been predicted overnight.  Got back in bed and before I fell back asleep I heard a loud rain shower falling, again expected. That confirmed my plans for the day- no lawn cutting today, but indoor work, which can mean the Studio.

Late morning I got up to Ocean Grove and worked my way down to the basement.  As usual, few cars around and few people.  Checked out my narwhal block, and in touching it I got just a hint of black ink on my hands, kind of like touching an old ink pad.  No harm in waiting a few more days to color the block itself.  Keep the lighter color inks from being contaminated by the black on the block. So instead I went to work coloring the third proof.

For music I went with one from the library I keep there, the soundtrack to the film Naked Lunch. I'm a fan of David Cronenberg, and even by that standard it's an odd film- not so much an adaptation of something many consider an unreadable book, but more an adaptation of the odd life of author William Burroughs and his frequent experimentations (drugs, sex, murder, etc) in the 50's and 60's that made the book happen.  The film was recommended to me because of the soundtrack, which is moody instrumentals by the London Philharmonic Orchestra with the off-kilter free-jazz saxophone of Ornette Coleman floating over the surface of all of it, which seemed like a good fit with the vast undersea scene I was coloring today.

Today's proof is a little different from the first two I colored.  This one is on white Rives heavyweight, as opposed to the okawara I used for the others, an almost tissue thin natural color Japanese paper.   Big difference in color, texture, and the way the watercolor is absorbed, but I've worked with both enough to know how to handle them.  The other difference is that this piece of paper was larger than the others, so it includes the full block, not the slightly cut off versions of the other proofs that had to bleed off the paper.  Minimal effect on composition.

For now, the same color choices and same order of coloring.  So for today that meant the cool neutral for the whale body, the pthalo wash for the underside of the iceberg, the pale tint for the rest of the iceberg and the horn, and some brown for the mud.  I'll save the rest for my next visit.