Inky Goddess: May went by too fast

Seriously, where did May go? My main project last month was to design, carve, print, and mail my pages for a multi-color Carving Consortium swap. I decided to try reduction prints again.

First step: Design. I think part of the reason I procrastinated doing this swap for so long was that I had no clue what to do. Originally, I thought of doing a tiger for a friend, but I couldn't get a design that I really liked. Then I thought of doing one of the three pets we've lost this year, but again none of the photos we had really struck me. Someone in my family suggested doing a Warhol style portrait which sounded fun.

I took a photo of myself and looked online to see some options for Warhol-izing my photo (this is a real term on the google!). The easiest, free option seemed to be using Fotoflexer. There's a pop art filter. I did that, but in the end used some of their other filters (mainly posterize) to come up with a carving design.

I printed out seven copies of my face and outlined a different color on each copy. On to the carving. Remember,with a reduction print, you are carving away the color you want left behind. So my first carving was to just carve out what I wanted left white- the color of the paper. This just left a light pink blob. Next, I carved out what I wanted to stay light pink and printed the next darker color. Originally, I had planned on this being colors actually true to the photo, but then decided to go with pinks and blues. After a couple of colors, the image started coming through.

Another darker layer and more detail comes through:

Remember that you have to print all the copies you'll need plus have extra for misprints. Turns out I have the perfect drying space:

So, I thought I had finally gotten a handle on the reduction print thing and then I realized that no, no, I still need to practice. For example, I decided mid-process to switch up the order I printed some colors. Which meant that I started getting too dark without having cut out the rest of the face highlights. I caught this before I made too many prints, although I actually kind of like how it turned out.

So then I cut out the highlights and went on. At this point, I wasn't really feeling the love. Kind of looks like a horror movie hatchet job, but I decided to trust the process and move on.

And then another major mistake happened. I'd been printing and carving for several days in a row trying to make the deadline for the swap. Printing just one color takes forever. Toward the end, I'd printed one color and had started on another color layer and then just got to tired to continue. Unfortunately, the next day I continued on as if I had printed all of the prints for that last color and carved out everything in preparation for the last color to print. You can imagine the stomach falling as I realized what happened. In the end, I had to paint on some eyebrows and cheek lines, but I think it turned out okay.

This was the first time I'd tried mixing my own paints. I used Speedball printing inks. It's interesting trying to get the right shades. Sometimes I definitely went too dark or too light, but over all I think they turned out okay. .

And here's the progression in blue just for fun.