Today was Puffins day. Picking up on where I had left off with the Puffins....it has been a while....the first task was to lay down the next layer of grey. I thought I was being very careful getting the right tone and everything looked good as I was mixing it.
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| Mixing grey |
I inked up the plate and away I went. 20 Puffin prints were gradually being rolled off the press and at first I was pretty happy with the results but I can't help picking over the results so by the end of the print run I was starting to think the grey was just that bit too dark and way to dark for the birds white chests. So a bit more head scratching.
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| Result of the grey |
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| Detail of a foot |
After a couple of days thinking it through and trying to work out what to do next I decided to jump in and take a risk. I managed to make a space between the wet canvases, re-cut the stomach of the puffins whilst still trying to keep the form, then mixed white with a lot of extender to allow the grey to show through.
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| Creating form on the white |
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| White and extender over grey |
And voila, a very strange looking group of puffins but I am feeling quietly confident that my maverick exploits will pay off as I start to put down the next layer. Unfortunately the prints are very wet and the air has been damp this past week, so I will have to wait another week before I can put on the next layer, but that's OK as I can spend that time working on my Cornish paintings.
