The Narwhal part 18

Back to work on the narwhal today.  The prints are all done, so that means time to work on the block itself.  As with the mermaid sculpture, I will be using water based relief ink to color the block itself.   I know that once it dries on the block, it will be a relatively permanent color, as effective as anything I could find to use for that task, and I happen to have it in my possession already.   As for choosing colors for the piece, I will be using the paper proofs as a guideline.   When it comes to mixing colors, I can rely on my years of being a painter for knowledge.   I have black, white, and the primary colors, and that's all I need to mix pretty much any color I might want.

Before doing anything, I chose the music of the day, a disc I burned many years ago collecting my favorite 20 songs from the initial phase of the Wipers.  A Portland, OR based band that was Greg Sage and his friends, active from the punk era to the beginnings of the alternative rock era.  (1978 to 1988)  Hard to define exactly what kind of music it was- it was punk, it was rock, it was atmospheric.  This was a band that was a big influence on another northwestern band that would follow a few years later, Nirvana, which in turn is seen as the first major success of the alternative rock movement, and the average person has never heard of Greg Sage.

In terms of the process, this block is not quite as full relief as the mermaid, so my procedure will be a little different.  Started with some lighter colors, mixing up a light cool gray for the whale body that was much like the one I made in watercolor. Changed it slightly for the underside of the iceberg, and warmed the color a little for the mud on the ocean floor.  Put it on pretty thick to start, working it into all the gouge lines and space between black shapes.

Doing so (and using a fairly large brush) meant covering some of the black surface of the block, but that would not be permanent.  Once that was done, I used newsprint to make two blotter proofs, thus removing some of the excess gray ink.  And when I am done adding all the colors, and that color ink is fully dry, I will reapply black ink over the top of the block with a hard brayer, which will bring back my original relief design.

That's as far as I got today.  I decided I want to bring a finer brush to color the ocean and all the details that the color will involve.  Besides, this week we got a massive heat and humidity wave, which has resulted in the arrival of summer dampness in the basement.  (don't know how it will affect the ink drying on the block, but it can't be good)

Leaving the basement, I noticed that Nichole had arrived, so I stashed my stuff in the car and went back in to see her.  I mentioned that I had received the latest newsletter with an attached link to a video about woodcut, which related to a theory we had discussed that getting people to sign up for the class might require teaching them what woodcut is.  She said that even more publicity will be coming out in the next few days.   A  dehumidifier is on order and should arrive at some point next week.