more iterations of the face

i'm starting to see a lot of things now in this portrait that aren't a face...kind of like when you look at a cloud for a long time and you start seeing things in it...

here are two more iterations i did. the first has the second to last layer printed in black and the last layer printed on top in a lighter shade of gray. the second has the last layer printed over the first layer. i don't really like it, but i guess its something.

i'm also starting to think of the backs of prints. i have always thought they were beautiful. i'm thinking maybe i will be able to install the prints in some way that the back won't be flesh against the wall.

timekeeping: carving tractor-4 hours

printing tractor and new iterations of faces- 2 hours

i call this "green tractor series"

jill and i have been burning the midnight oil in the print studio lately- having some good conversation, and giving feedback on carving, etching, and final or not-so-final prints. its a good way to work- I'm glad she's here.
so i finished carving the tractor. basically. but i want to carve into more now that i see it printed. the first is printed with a bright green layer underneath and dark green on top. the second is printed dark green on top of the first very light layer of my dad's face. its almost unnoticeable so i don't know that its important- but i kind of like knowing that it is there. the image printed kind of fuzzy un-intentionally, i think maybe the shalaq quote i put on the wood hadn't finished drying so it wasn't taking ink? but i kind of like it. the print reminds me of my dad which i like.

weekend of jan 20th

5.5 hours carving final layer

2 hours printing

January 19th

On Tuesday evening, I printed the 3rd layer of the reduction. The portrait is really looking like a portrait now. Although, I'm having this weird thing where I can't really see this portrait objectively or even subjectively anymore. I've been taking too much time on it. I am still in love with the process of carving and printing, but the actual image doesn't have a lot of what I used to see in it anymore. I will be excited to have it complete (which I plan to have done for my crit on Monday) and to begin another carving. I think the portrait of my mom will maybe help to re-activate the portrait of my dad.

I also printed this third stage on its own like I did with the 1st stage. The image on this third layer is resolved enough to stand alone as a portrait, and its an interesting print. This is starting to remind me of one of my favorite parts of printing...kind of experimenting...printing layers in ways I hadn't planned, and also printing other images on top of these. I plan to print some stages of my mom's portrait over some stages of my dad's portrait...just to see what it looks like. I also want to print (with lots of trans-base to make the image more translucent) some of the images (tractor, wheels) over my dad's portrait.

I've loosened up after my review, and am working at a much better speed. I think I was able to vocalize things I had been thinking that had been making me tentative about my project, and have since been able to look at my project objectively.

Printing: 2.5 hours

forgot time keeping

timekeeping

carving-8 hours

new blog resolution

my new year's resolution...to blog more and eat sugar less. i'm not doing well so far...

my review was a real eye-opener, as i've heard it was or many of my peers.

because i'm telling narratives through portraits, i should have thought more about the narratives the portraits would tell together, placed next to each other. janie kind of told me from the beginning that i couldn't successfully tell stories of unrelated people together. And now I'm really understanding that.

I'm beginning to accept that m project has become about my dad. its not what i was setting out to do. but its where i'm at now.

but i also want to tell my mom's narrative. and i want to tell my parent's narratives together. i think that including my mom in the project will take this theme of human suffering and add love and strength to it. thats what it needs.

during my critique, jim said that i am incredibly attached to the portrait of my dad, in an only natural way, but not in a good way. that comment hit me hard, because i realized how true it was. and how its stunting my progress and artistic experimentation. but i'm concious of it now, an its a limitation that i am going to work past.