I managed to make it over to the other craft store this week and, as I had hoped, it did have the green and yellow printing ink I wanted. Unfortunately, after that, things didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked.
Corn stalk linocut
The day after the longer trip to the other store I set up to use the new inks. I wanted to use a streaky blend of the two to create a textured effect. But when I went to squeeze out the yellow, it dribbled out a thin liquid along with the pasty ink. Not good. I was unable to work out a smooth consistency with it. I thought adding the green ink would help but it didn’t really. By the time I got it to the consistency I needed, the colors were blended far more than I wanted. I also had too much ink. I made a reasonable print, but it didn’t have the striated effect that I was going for. You can see the center is a little bit lighter green than the edges, but I was going for a more dramatic variation. I was glad to see that the little nicks I put into the ears came through. I also think I will take more off of the sky area to differentiate it from the grassy ground.
I returned to the store and exchanged my tube for the only other one they had. I did check this one first to make sure as best I could that it was okay. I haven’t tried it out yet, but plan to this week.
