Day Forty Six

Today’s post coming to you live (just barely) from the couch. I almost forgot about today’s piece; I scrambled last minute for the pastels and a piece of tagboard. As I sketched in pencil, I came up with the idea for what to do with today’s word. Oh yes...today’s word...

in-dus-try n., pl.  –tries The commercial production and sale of goods and services; a branch of manufacture and trade; industrial management as distinguished from labor; diligence.

After working for a bit, I decided to do sort of a sort of mirror image.

I liked the idea of the plants mirroring the buildings in approximate shape and size. I wanted to show the replacing of plants and trees with tall buildings and smog. (Just between you and me, I prefer the dark and grungy industrial wasteland to the picturesque field any day.) I think I would rather have spent more time cleaning up the image; maybe I will work on this idea for a print later on. Now that I have the rough draft, I’d like to see how a clean, bright silhouette would turn out versus the sketchy, soft lines created by pastel.

Thanks for reading!! Enjoy your night!

Xx

-r

Day Thirty Seven

Sadly, today was a designated school day. That means no art, no television, and no music. Well, I cheated a little on the “no music” front. Feeling deprived, I decided to take some extra time today’s project.

I had an uncarved linoleum block sitting around, and decided to use it. After the experience with linoleum block print Christmas cards, it seemed like a good art form to explore.

Before I tell you more about the carving process, I should probably tell you today’s word:

romp  v.  To run, play, or frolic in a carefree way.

Okay, back to the carving...

The original sketch was of a girl (seen from the back) running through the forest. This block was very easy to carve; cutting down considerably on time and amount of accidental stabbings. (hooray!)

I spread some paint on a sheet of glass with a silkscreen squeegee, and placed the carved block onto the paint to ink it.

Let me just say that many of the fine details did not come through in the carving (the blades I had were much too wide for this task) and the girl herself did not come through as much as I’d hoped.                                                   

The first time, I’d put too thick a layer of paint on the glass, and the print came out "blobby".

The second print had too little ink, and barely came out at all.

The third and final print was lacking some paint around the edges, but I decided to go with it.

The two people (other than myself) that have seen the print can’t quite tell what it is *sigh* but I hope at least some of you can. Thanks for reading!

Enjoy your night!!

Xx

-r