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Duck, Be A Lady Tonight

This is where a print all starts to come together. I've written before about how a reduction print goes through a phase where it just really doesn't look like anything. I call it the awkward phase. But there's always a moment when you can really see what the final print will look like. For the duck print, that moment is now.

Carving away the brown of the sky reflection helped the shapes come out, and the light brown really gives you an idea of what the final composition is. I like the brown in the water forming the ripples and rings, but I need to be careful not to let them get too dark with the dark brown and black to come. If I can, I am going to shave those high spots down to minimize them becoming darker. I really want the ducks and the birdhouse to pop out when the final darker layers go down.

Floating in the Sky

Here now we have a sense of place for the ducks as the body of water, reflecting the sky, becomes evident. It will be tricky cutting for the next color, as I will need to maintain the shapes of the ducks and the birdhouse. Printing also becomes trickier, as the roller will inevitably catch a few ridges of the cutaways. A few will be okay, but I want to avoid it as much as possible. I have used a mask at times for very small areas (I did so for the barn on "Sunflower Farm"). We'll see.

Three more colors should bring us to the end.