With the ranger

I talked a little about the process I decided to use in my post "from suicide to jigsaw" how I was going to add color to my relief prints. The process works great and I'm really happy with the way the final images turn out too but I was still looking for a faster way to make my images. Using the jigsaw method, I could have all the various colors rolled up with ink and pieced back together in about 15-20 minutes. Doesn't seem too long except when you're trying to make an edition of ten, making the printing process 3-4 hours. At 2 a.m. I didn't want this to take this long, I was impatient and wanted to find another approach that might even still speed up the process.

That's when lightning struck.

"I've just had an apostrophe"

"I think you mean 'an epiphany' Smee" 

"Lightning has just struck my brain" 

"Well that must hurt" 

-Hook

(Such a great movie!) 

....back on track... I got this idea that maybe instead of cutting out all these little shapes I could just draw my image on a piece of plexiglass, paint the ink on plexiglass and run that through the press. Awesome! I'm sure this would save me so much more time because if the ink was fluid enough it would just brush on the plexiglass nice and easy and before long I would have another print done. So I went to work. 

With sharpie I drew my image on the plexiglass, I mixed all my ink colors and with different brushes I painted all the various areas I wanted color. Even though I thinned down the ink with a thinner it still wasn't as fluid as I hoped. I still took time to cover all the shapes with color. The other issue I didn't consider with this method was how more detailed I could get my shapes. My shapes are only so detailed when I have to cut them out with a pointy knife, but a sharpie I could get smaller shapes and more of them.

Painting my image this way took about 30-40 minutes per print. Hahaha so much for saving myself time... so I quickly got burnt out with this method and wished I had a print assistant to slave over this print instead of me. Any volunteers to print with me from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. every night? Payment would be in prints and pepsi, I cant really afford much more then that.

Even though it was a much longer process it didn't look to bad. It had a very painterly feel which was a nice effect.

Once all the carving was done I ran a test print to do a final check to make sure everything looked right. Then the more exciting part.... running a color test proof....

Nice. These print are much more dynamic and visually interesting then the black and white key block image. I'm really excited that the color is working out even though the printing process requires so much more time. It will be worth it seeing all 20 of my prints hanging in the Zion gallery space. 

...well that didn't last very long....

Not even a week into this challenge and I'm already unmotivated. I know that getting into a habit takes effort and pushing through those times you don't want to do it but here's the thing.  The underlining reason I was doing this challenge was to get myself into the habit of drawing everyday. As I started drawing from the prompts I found I kept asking myself "is this helping me get to where I want to go?" No was my daily response. Yes it was helping me sketch everyday but my biggest pressing project is the Zion residency coming up in March 2015. 

That got me thinking that maybe I should switch gears and focus on drawing my images for that project instead of just random sketches. So now here is my new challenge to myself, 30 drawings in 30 days for my Zion residency. Each day (hopefully) I will post a new drawing for my project, jump-starting me into the carving phase sooner, so that hopefully I can reach my goal of having all my prints printed before January 2015. That gives me 3 months! 

So here I go! I got up this morning and cut all of my Sintra for my prints so that I had the boards all ready to go. And here they are...

10- 8x10

10- 11x14

5- 16x20

5- 18x24

A total of 30 images for my residency show. So let the 30 day Zion residency challenge begin! 

Oh p.s. If your following me or happen to see what I'm working on, leave a comment or share this with others. I like to think that you all are enjoying what I'm doing but it's nice to get some interaction. It will also hold me more accountable if I knew others were watching me and expecting me to get a drawing done everyday. Thanks!