Moving forward on the latest printmaking project today.  This is the first color run of Foothill Lake.  I titled it that because I can’t remember what lake it is exactly, but I think it’s the San Luis Reservoir on the way to the coast along S.R. 152.  In any case, the photo is so old I have a print of it.  I stopped printing photos 15-20 years ago so it’s no wonder I can’t remember where I was when I took this particular photo.  Then again, it may NOT be that lake because we usually would not stop to take photos on this drive we’ve done multiple times each way every year for going on 50 years.  Going there, we’re in a tearing hurry to get to the beach so we can start relaxing.  Coming home, we’re barn sour.  And if you’ve ever ridden a wily horse with more experience on trail rides than you have, you know what “barn sour” means.  So this print is going to stay generically titled as “Foothill Lake.”

Yes, I’m aware of the ghosting of the hills on some of the prints.  I forgot to wash off the water-based ink I used to off-print the key block to the color separation blocks.  Oops.  This should not be a problem at all because that’s exactly where the foothill shapes will be printed in the very last run.  But after printing this block today I definitely went back and washed the other two blocks when I did cleanup. 

People ask me why I’m doing this tedious, messy and chancy work.  Well, I’ve always enjoyed process at least as much as end product.  I don’t mind the tedium of planning, carving, mixing and rolling out ink, inking blocks, setting up the paper, etc.  It’s the same with other activities I enjoy like knitting, embroidery, drawing, sewing, etc.  And yes, I know I can tell an AI bot that I want an image made from any photograph that looks like a linoleum block print and it would be finished in 3 seconds.  Where is the fun in that?  

Here’s the plan for placement of all the colors:

Mockup colored with colored pencils.  Actual ink colors will be very different.  Nature of the beasts.