Green Heron Lino Final Edition

With the holidays, bird counts, scouting for bird counts and waiting on the arrival of some white ink, my poor Green Heron reduction linocut keeps being shunted off to the side. Finally today I completed an edition of 12. The print is not horribly different than the last version but I did cover some of the purplish color with black.

That had always been my intention. When you're doing reduction linos you have to think in an odd way, realizing that some of the colors you see at one stage of the print have to be there at that time but will eventually be covered with another color.

Above you can see the final version, photographed in natural light so the colors are pretty true. Below is a picture of the final linoleum block itself. At this point only the raised areas will accept ink and print when I print them by hand. So this is what was left when I printed the final black colorl

I did run into an unexpected problem with this. When printing by hand you rub on the paper with a baren pressuring the ink onto the paper. Normally the ink will hold the paper and prevent it from slipping as you apply pressure, especially if you hold one corner down. However today there was just too little ink to hold the paper. For the first 10 or so proofs the paper would move when I applied pressure. That cause smudges and misalignment of colors.

Finally I figured out how to get it to work - the secret was great gentleness - and the print worked out as planned. It is 6x8 inches for the image alone, and 9x11 for the entire print. It is printed with Gamblin oil-based ink on Rives Lightweight printing paper.