Woodblock Reduction Part II

So here's the second week's results of my reduction printing project. I carved away the parts that I wanted to remain the first colour of ink that I printed last week. All those white areas won't print again. Now you know why Picasso called these "suicide prints". It's do or die. There's no going back.


And here are the results at this stage of the process. I love the blue and green one. It reminded me of ads from the 70's.. all those olive green appliances, remember those? And I swear I must have spent time in a room with this very combination of shag carpet. I remember my aunt had gold and orange shag and a special rake to bring the shag up after you'd vacuumed it. What a lot of work for shag...but it did hide a lot of crumbs.

After my nine prints we complete with their second colour, I had to cut away my block again. This one was going to emphasize my composition using either black or dark blue. You just sort of cross your fingers you can line things up good enough for the whole thing to work. What's surprising is how off you really can be and it's still okay...at least to my eyes.


Here's what the block looks like now. Lots of wood is gone. The lettering is almost non-existent, and just the kitty (Kitty X of course) is still intact.

This class goes by really fast. before I had to go (the next class was coming in) I managed to carve away the last bits of my block. I'm printing it in the morning and there'll be nothing left after that. I'm carving it all away. Block destroyed.

Here's a look at this final stage. Eyes, ears and remote control buttons. I hope to be done tomorrow. You'll know if I am.