A couple years back in the spring, we took a camping trip to Monument Valley. The campground had trails right there where we could explore arches and spectacular rock formations all within close walking from camp.
I set up my easel and painted one of the days during our stay, as well as captured lots of photos for reference, and reminiscence. My painting didn't work out as well as I had hoped, the time of day that I had managed to get out there and set up the light wasn't what I had been excited about, and the vivid sienna cliffs had a cartoonish look to them. Oh well, it happens.
But.... I didn't give up on the idea of interpreting this amazing place. This winter in my Advanced Relief Printmaking class, taught by the incomparable Phyllis Shafer, I chose this composition for my three color reduction print.
Cathryn you might say, there are more than three colors in this image. Yes, you are correct, it was done with a rainbow roll in the sky, and selective inking over the rocks. The way the rock groupings are separated from each other by the sky allowed me to ink the area in the light with another color, while keeping them pretty well separated. The brightest highlights are the color of the paper. The first color printed was the sky with what we call a rainbow roll, two colors are placed side by side on the inking plate, and the printmaker rolls the brayer over them both till they merge on the brayer and mix to create an ombre effect, as there is in the sky, it is paler closer to the horizon and deeper blue higher up into space.
Next it was time to print the lighter value in the rocks. So I carved away all the places where I wanted to preserve the sky color and mixed my rock colors. This part was a bit counter intuitive, notice that the rocks in the sunny side of the canyon are a cooler brown, and the shadowed rocks are very warm brown. Typically the colors in the sun are warmer, and shadows are cooler. I think it is because the rock is so red that it glows through the shadow, and gets washed out a bit in the sun. Despite my trepidation I printed my hot shadow brown and cool sunny brown, low and behold it worked!
For the last run of the deepest dark color I mixed up a nice puddle of eggplant purple, and that tied it all together. I Think I can predict more dramatic desert landscapes in my printmaking future, were going to Moab and Canyonlands this spring.
I printed up eleven of these, and this block is destroyed so there can not be any more exactly like this printed. The paper is Stonehenge, and I used Caligo Safe wash ink by Cranfield.
A couple years back in the spring, we took a camping trip to Monument Valley. The campground had trails right there where we could explore arches and spectacular rock formations all within close walking from camp.
I set up my easel and painted one of the days during our stay, as well as captured lots of photos for reference, and reminiscence. My painting didn't work out as well as I had hoped, the time of day that I had managed to get out there and set up the light wasn't what I had been excited about, and the vivid sienna cliffs had a cartoonish look to them. Oh well, it happens.
But.... I didn't give up on the idea of interpreting this amazing place. This winter in my Advanced Relief Printmaking class, taught by the incomparable Phyllis Shafer, I chose this composition for my three color reduction print.
Cathryn you might say, there are more than three colors in this image. Yes, you are correct, it was done with a rainbow roll in the sky, and selective inking over the rocks. The way the rock groupings are separated from each other by the sky allowed me to ink the area in the light with another color, while keeping them pretty well separated. The brightest highlights are the color of the paper. The first color printed was the sky with what we call a rainbow roll, two colors are placed side by side on the inking plate, and the printmaker rolls the brayer over them both till they merge on the brayer and mix to create an ombre effect, as there is in the sky, it is paler closer to the horizon and deeper blue higher up into space.
Next it was time to print the lighter value in the rocks. So I carved away all the places where I wanted to preserve the sky color and mixed my rock colors. This part was a bit counter intuitive, notice that the rocks in the sunny side of the canyon are a cooler brown, and the shadowed rocks are very warm brown. Typically the colors in the sun are warmer, and shadows are cooler. I think it is because the rock is so red that it glows through the shadow, and gets washed out a bit in the sun. Despite my trepidation I printed my hot shadow brown and cool sunny brown, low and behold it worked!
For the last run of the deepest dark color I mixed up a nice puddle of eggplant purple, and that tied it all together. I Think I can predict more dramatic desert landscapes in my printmaking future, were going to Moab and Canyonlands this spring.
I printed up eleven of these, and this block is destroyed so there can not be any more exactly like this printed. The paper is Stonehenge, and I used Caligo Safe wash ink by Cranfield.