Cows come home

Here's the final state of the cow print. I had a lot of difficulty with registration on this last color. In retrospect, I think this print would have been more successful if I'd used a separate block for the cows and tree branches. The mahogany plywood I used for the first couple colors to get the texture I wanted was difficult to print as a solid color without over-inking. I'm glad it's done, and I think it turned out OK.

I've been doing a fair amount of painting the last few days, and I'll be sharing those as soon as they're dry enough to photograph.

second state of the cows

Here's my progress this week. I finished carving the shadows and cows, and printed the next color in a transparent blue, so the shadows on the grass look green.

This is the block on the press inked and ready for the next piece of paper.


And here's the print. I managed to proof the block and print the entire edition of 30 in three hours.

reduction print

I haven't posted much work recently, mostly because I haven't had much time to make art. I did start a large woodblock print this week, and thought I'd share the process as it goes along. This is a reduction print, so for each color I'll carve away a little more of the block. I started by printing a blue background for the sky using the whole block, and then carved away the areas that are going to remain sky to reveal the tree and hillside. One of the cows is showing up on the horizon at this stage. The picture shows the block inked and ready to print on my press. I only inked part of the block to make a green hillside, the rest of that tree will be printed in the next color.


After printing the green grass of the hill, I started carving away to reveal the rest of the cows, and the shadows of the cows and trees.