The Narwhal part 20

Got up to the JSAC around noon, and found Nichole in the office.  Busy for a few minutes, but I didn't mind, as I could stand there and enjoy the air conditioning.  Once she was ready, she confirmed receiving the images I had sent yesterday and expects to be able to use them in the social media promotion she will be doing in the coming days.  She agreed with my opinion that my woodcut student who believes we should have a class just for printing on fabric may be overestimating the interest in such things.  Maybe we can mention the possibility of printing on cloth in promoting woodcut classes (I have done it a few times and could again if desired), but I see it as more an option than anything else at this point.

I left her to deal with all the problems that she has to deal with (a few weeks ago I was present when she kept getting calls from someone trying to order pizza- she told him each time the number he had was wrong and he was calling an arts provider, but he kept trying to order a pizza) and headed downstairs to my Studio.  I had brought lunch, and when that was done, got back to work on the narwhal block.

The wood filler patches seemed to be fully dry, and the brown ink I had applied a few days ago seemed dry enough, so time to continue work.  Went back up to my car and got some sandpaper, 100 and 220 grits.  Used the rough one then the fine one, taking those patches down to flat with the board, as shown above.

After clearing away the excess sawdust, I put out some water based black relief ink, and started applying it with brayers, hard and soft.  It all went pretty much as I expected- the various colors safe in the recessed (cut) areas, and the black recovering the surfaces, surrounding and emphasizing the color.  Since we are expecting several warm and sunny days to come and the basement is still damp, I decided to go ahead and move it back to my car as I did last time.  I still need to come up with a mounting system (I have an idea) and at that point I may apply more black ink around the edges of the rectangle.  But it looks like the art part is going to work as planned.