More lino print faces

I've been distracted by the gouache resist and ink drawings, but I still need to work on these.  I need seven more of these little ones (3 X 5) and six more of the bigger ones (4 X 5) before I can print them as big blocks. 

So here are three more.  I have another half-week of vacation, and while I don't want to think of it as "cranking them out," I do hope I can do a number of them. 

There are still a bunch of new(ish) things that I want to try.

More Gouache Resist and Ink

Gouache resist and ink revisited

Somehow it makes me feel so mature, or something, to go back to a technique I did last year to revisit it.  I was looking at some of those from last year--was it last year?--yes--and really liking how they turned out, and wanting to do some more of them.

So this is the gouache resist and ink....

It didn't take long though (one, as a matter of fact) to remember what I had ultimately decided about why I didn't like this technique.  It's cumbersome.  The gouache is thick, and can only be put down as a resist crudely.  And I used a different paint this time, which lets the ink through is different ways, which I think perhaps I kindof like.  We'll see.

But since I still like the results, I think I'll play around with it some more.  I am, after all, officially on winter holiday, so I do have a little time (at least I THINK I do, I hope I do....)

The second 31 of them....

This is #30 through #60......

Lino Faces #55 - #57

I think I'm ready to do something else for awhile.  I'm nowhere near to my goal of 100 of these, but I'm CRAVING a more fluid medium, something where I can have more subtlety.   

I'm thinking of going back to pen and ink with ink washes, or even those gouache and ink resist drawings, with pen and ink over them.  Charcoal?  Pencil?  Ball point pen?

I really like these, except this one right here--the third one--which didn't work very well, but I want to DRAW!

What this has forced me to do was see differently, and now with this last one, a whole new direction of the linoprints is suggesting itself.....

Skewed Sketches

All I can say about these is that after nearly a year of not doing them, its really fun to do them again.   When I was last doing them, they had lost their "skews", which I am trying to put back in.

Lino Faces #53 - #55

Thanks to Asakiyume for her characterization of these lino cuts as "creating a world of souls and personalities".  I really like that, because it does seem like, on some level, that's what's going on.  One of the things I really like about making art is that as I draw, I do fall in love with the person who is emerging on the paper.  It's a little different with the lino cuts, because when you're cutting, it's just cutting.  The magic happens initially in the drawing, and then when you pull the first proof, but you have to do the middle cutting step, which can be very rewarding, but in a different, more zen way, but not in the same way as drawing.  (I don't know if that made any sense at all.) 

So here are three more.  They seem like they could all live in the same world.  A couple days ago I was putting groups of three together to print together, and out of 53 blocks, there were only three trios that wanted to be together.  I tried and tried to get more, especially of these little 3 X 5 blocks, but the three had to all have the same sized heads and the same style.  But that wasn't what I was thinking about when I was making them, so most of them don't belong together.  I did print a block of 20 (of the 3X5s) and 16 (of the 4X6s), but for that, since none of them go together, they all go together, since they're all black and white.  If I haven't posted any of those yet, I'll do that sometime soon. 

Bad Acid? (More Intaglio Explorations)

 Oh, these are bad scans.  The paper wasn't quite flat, so only the parts that are flat on the scanner bed are in focus.  But it's getting late (6:17 am), and I need to go walk the dog, so I don't have time to rescan them right now.

But I LOVED the line drawing of David, and I had to go aquatint the whole thing, and while I like the result, it's not the same drawing at all.

But I'm thinking something is the matter with either the acid or the ground, because here is another line drawing etched for 30 minutes, and the lines are really nice.  But if I etch them for longer, the ground disappears between the lines, and it gets all spready.

So I aquatinted this one too.  It still needs some work.

And here's the one that I thought should have been black when I over-etched it last week, but wasn't.  So this one is aquatinted pretty heavily, with some light areas burnished back in.

Lino faces #50 - #52

Here are three more.....