Linoreduction, last 2 passes

cutting the last of the dark greens away

finally, down to cutting away the last of the dark greens, the plate is getting "sloppier" and harder to handle, think about that when positioning it in the matrix for printing, that it is in the right place.....
this time I have "lined" the matrix with brown tape, why? because, with a bigger piece of paper, it does make it easier as the paper slides better into position on the tape, than it does on the bare cardboard.

favorite at the moment colour, and Becky giving the basket a good whipping!

inking up the last colour, the one that makes it all come together (hopefully ;o) right now, I am in love with dark aubergine... it gives a lovely finish, sometimes black is not the thing, it depends of course on the print very much...... I am fickle when it comes to colours.... favorites slide in and out of use.

first finished print off the press

and here it is, the first finished print off the press, not gonna rock the world, but I am happy, it has come out very nice, and I like it.
Remember when you ink up so many colours, that if it goes quite fast with the colours, and they don't have time to dry totally in between, you can get previous colours transferring back onto the plate, making the last colour not so dense as you might wish, now, I like this, I like the peeping through of colours, but not everybody does, the answer to this is of course to clean the plate in between printings, or... wait for the ink to dry more before applying the last inking.
I can see that the plate lends itself to cutting out the hens to make something with...... I always have a look at the plate, even if the plate as a whole does not work anymore, parts of it might, bits of it can be great in a collagraph or monoprint.....
I am doodling around with materials other than cardboard for the matrix, it does "extend" a little bit in the printing process, and the hole becomes a bit bigger, but I still prefer it, as rarely are any of my plates the same size, which makes the use of wood, or plastic, a lot more expensive.... there is always a trade off between easy and difficult in printmaking..... part of what makes it so fun!
Happy printing!