Brush and Baren

Let's wrap up this scoter linocut, shall we?
There has been some serious neglect going on for the one female bird in this image. Overall she should be a tiny bit warmer in tone than her male counterparts, so I rolled up a warm mid-gray and did some spot inking....

After fussing about with the little shapes of bright color in the birds' beaks for a couple of days, it was time to zoom back out and start tying things together across the entire image. There's more work to be done in the water before I can tackle the...

Well, I dropped the ball on narrating the progress of the scoter linocut, so let's see if I can reconstruct the steps based on photos.
For Step 4 I needed to do some spot inking to get the crazy color of the male birds' beaks going, plus small bits that will be reflected in the water. The best way to contain this was to cut some newsprint masks....

Things have been quiet here at Brush and Baren– less so in life outside the blogosphere. I've got a piece in progress, but The Season is coming up rapidly here in Maine and suddenly there are a lot of details needing attention away from the studio.
But let's see what's been going on in between the more "administrative" parts of an artist's life. (Read: framing, packing, shipping, submitting show entries, writing exhibition statements, organizing PR images, delivering work, updating websites......