Second Day of Carving and Printing: Was It a Good Idea?

Eucalyptus 2 and 3
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These are the things I learned today in reworking the board. First of all waking up in the night with a fully formed image in your head does not necessarily mean it will happen. Second, pure white paper is better than warm white which in Stonehenge is too yellow. And thirdly take the time to get the correct tool for the job in your hand first.

For some reason I thought there needed to be more leaves in the almost too much of a white background. So in image number two I added several and used another watercolor to fill them in, Victoria Green and a softer red for the stems, Emily Gap Northern Territory Orange instead of Red. So there are two different greenish greys for the leaves.

I printed the image using a warm white by Stonehenge and found it too yellow. And I thought I needed a another leaf off on the left side background so it did not look like it was dripping from the middle of the page. AND I also thought the gum nuts needed to have more white on them but not totally, so I carved out some of the brown areas. They are okay but I really think I like the plain old gum nuts of the first image better. But like I said in the previous blog, you can’t add back in the wood.

Eucalyptus all of them
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So here is the third one redone with only the Victoria Green used for the leaves along with the softer red of Emily Gap Northern Territory Orange, and the extra leaf all done on a crisp white paper. This time I enlarged the groove around the outside of the image and embossed it with the correct tool….a teaspoon I borrowed somewhere in Australia and did not return. Notice in the second yellowish image that I tore the embossing of the outline because I used the same tool I used for embossing the leaves, etc of the image.

Eucalyptus first white line print
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I just wanted to add this picture of the very first white line print I carved in a class offered by Mary Walker in Highlands, NC about five or six years ago. It was done on the pine board with knots that she handed out for us to use. This is the photograph I took to  class to extract an image of Eucalyptus leaves and gum nuts.

If nothing else I have made improvements in wood selection, carving and painting, but wonder if the simpler images are much better for this technique.