29 Faces in September

This is a really cool challenge--make 29 faces in any medium, any style, any degree of finish during the month of September.  I did it last year, and came nowhere near to finishing (in September anyway--I did finally finish in December), but worked on some new techniques.

This year I'm doing it again, and am working on linocuts.  I LOVE linocuts (and woodcuts, and just about every other printmaking technique) and have some major projects I'd like to do with them, but I have no skills.  I actually cheated on this challenge and started early (only two days early), and boy, is there a learning curve.  But I figure there's no way to get the skills without making a LOT of them, so that's what I'm going to do--29 faces (because I do love faces).

This is #3.  It is 4" X 6", and it's the third  proof after small amounts of additional cutting for each.  The first thing I did after I had the image transferred to the linoleum, was start cutting in the middle of the hair--yikes!  We're so used to our marks being the dark things that I did that without thinking.  On this print, I touched my finger to the rolled out ink after I pulled the print, and dabbed it into those spaces, because it really looked awful.

This is #4.  It is 3" X 5", and it's the second proof.  For the first one, I was trying to have a mid-gray, with close together lines.  It didn't work.  It looked stupid.  I'm not sure this is any better, but alas.  I think I really need to be thinking in much simpler terms.  This is NOT pen and ink where you have lots of latitude for subtlety.

This is #5.  It is also 3" X 5", and it's the first proof.  I actually really like this.  It's much simpler than the others, and I like both the shapes of the guy's face and how the thinner lines make his beard.  It's more the kind of graphic I think one needs for linocuts.