raptor collage and elephant

*updated 12/14/14

New Collage :)!

I'm so excited about this week's collage!

After "Self-portrait as Queen of Blue Birds," (the big collage from two weeks ago, which is 30 x 30" using two pieces of paper), I feel like I'm ready to hone in on working with full sheets of stonehenge paper - 30 x 22." 

carving the tentacles with all those little circles in perspective - oy!

And Goldilocks says:
This plane is toooo light.
This plane is toooo dark.
This plane is juuuuust right

The paper arrived Monday, and I marbelized a few sheets right away. The raptor is from last week's block, but reprinted by hand (gotta love that wooden spoon) in a dark brown on fawn color paper with added accents in black, grey, white and gold ink. 

At first, the boats were tranquil, but it needed "just a little something more" - and so, the giant squid (finished Thursday - my first cephalopod!). 

I also tried to print my first polyester plate at home:

plate

try

try

try again

...and again, and again, and again

This could have gone better - by the time I got the press pressure adjusted, the plate was starting to wear out. It was a nice drawing, and it would have been nice to have gotten better/more consistent prints from it; but then, for me, there's no way to figure out the press set up except by printing a plate (next time, will hopefully be easier). Also, if the drawing had been directly on the relief block, I wouldn't have gotten any copies of it (so anything that I got from printing the polyester plate is a bonus.)  I did manage to get it on a relief block (which I then carved).

print on relief block

relief print proof - happy with the subtle gradation that came from varying the pressure of the marks

And I went back to figure drawing:

5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes

20 minutes