Mistakes were made, but I learned something

I think I'm going to call it on this little print, because I'm realizing that the roofing tin I"m using will never allow a brighter value. It's easy to scratch into, and some mistakes can be smoothed out, but I don't think I'll ever get the value range I'm looking for. I've started another print on a steel plate leftover from my Solarplate days. In the meantime, I might try to add some color to this one with Prismacolor colored pencils. The buckets of blood will look much better in red, right?

 

All the elements

As far as I can tell, all of the elements are in, although I still don't know exactly what I'm going to do with the blue squares. It's all still pretty rough. I'm remembering the time my prof told me that my work looks terrible until it doesn't. Truth.

 

A little dark

A lot of people have been asking me how I am spending my summer. Apparently, trying to relax and recover from a tough year isn't the answer they are hoping for. They always look so disappointed when I say that.

    Journeying inward is what I'm really doing. That usually involves studio time.

    I'm working on the plant painting, and I like it so far. The changes I make from day to day would look pretty small on screen, so I'm saving it up until more happens. 

    In the meantime, I've been combing through my sketchbooks for images to develop into little dry point prints. This one comes from a dream, or nightmare, actually. Up until now, it didn't seem like a good image to take any farther, but today, since so many things in the world are awful, this one matched the feeling I get after reading the news.

    I'd like to march through my sketchbooks and make drypoint of all the images I've ignored for one reason or another over the years. I've already started this one. Because I'm usually so detail oriented, I'm trying to loosen up and let the image develop with fewer tools and more work with my eyeballs and hands.

    I promise the next one won't be so dark.