Posted by Dave Bull at 1:30 PM, March 23, 2008
I've been getting mail again, asking why no updates ... Nothing new to answer about that - just the usual that it's difficult to find time to talk about the work, while at the same time getting it done!
Anyway, apologies for the procrastination on putting something here. Let's try to make up for it today!
First, let's deal with the 'bad' news - I don't have anything I can show you to give you a good clear idea of what the print will look like. This one will have no key block at all, and the print will be made up of multi-layering of colour blocks. So there is no actual 'drawing' as such, to reproduce here.
I myself can refer to a Photoshop mock-up I have made, with those layers stacked up and tinted in an attempt to get a handle on what the result will be like, but I really don't want to put that image here. Simply it would give everybody the wrong idea about what to expect. The Photoshop construction is just a tool to help me move along the progress - it isn't what the print will 'look like'.
But I have no problem with showing you the blocks themselves ... you can then do exactly the same thing that I am currently doing - study them and try to get a handle on what colours/gradations/etc. to use when I finally sit down with the printing tools.
So here is a series of small snapshots of the block set as it currently stands, partway through the carving. Let's look at them in order of their 'position' in the image, starting with the most distant, and coming forward step by step ...
Nothing much to see on the first block - it will be used for a background flat printing (nothing carved yet):
The next block - carving finished - will put a distant layer of misty tree trunks in place:
Moving forward, in the middle distance, will be a group of trees ...
Those trees will have texture - not strong, because they are also misty, but more than the distant trees, which are just outlines:
And the texture has a second level ... (this is the block I am carving just now ...)
Moving still closer towards the viewer, there is a quite large tree in that plane:
... and it has a companion:
These trees have been 'moved'. The taller thinner one has 'walked' a short distance down the mountainside to take up a stance overlooking my campsite, and the fatter one has really made tracks - he actually lives on a mountain in Hakone!
These trees have texture - more detailed than the ones behind them:
And the texture has texture ...
Coming to the foreground, these trees are standing on a mossy bank (no carving started here yet):
And that will be multi-layered and textured ... but until I get the base layer worked out, I can't see yet what will happen on top of it.
If I had nothing else to do, I think carving could be done in another week or so, but that's not the case. I have a huge website job in the works (opening in the first week of April), and am burning the candles at both ends this month.
Keep watching the webcam, and I'll post another update here when there is something substantial to show.
Thanks for watching!
The thread continues in [Forest in Spring - 2] ...