Reclaimed, part two!

Surprisingly, listening to Soundgarden hasn't lightened my mood. Nor does the prospect of being cold for the next six months or so. But there we are: Happy Fall. On a happier note, I wound up making some good progress on the Reclaimed piece over the weekend and aside from some unfortunate bubbling issues, I'm pretty excited. So, let's take a gander, shall we?

So, we left off with a bunch of charcoally images, right. This continued along, but was joined by the demon/spirit figures, re-purposed from "The Demon You Feared Has Already Found You." 

There was liberal fixative spraying. I was aghast to run out on Saturday -- which means I blasted through an entire can on this project. Oi.  If the backyard raccoons are still hanging about, there could be three-eyed raccoons in the near future.

So I was initially geeked about the long demons and the nice dark red color pop, but this gave way to a frustrated sense that things were not hanging together and compositions were suffering a bit. That'd bring us up to the despondent post on Friday.

However! On the next day, it occurred to me to try out the old woman from Regret and the border from an ancient garden print and this got me going again.

 Of course, a lot of the border would be cut off when I fit it onto the wooden panel.

So! Back with the excitement and hands blackened with conte crayon.

Sunday was more colorful.

The woman came out entirely too dark. Am thinking of stencilling gold stars around the top of that one. 

After they were all hanging about, I was torn between five of them. I only had one wood panel to place it onto and they only want one piece from me. I kept wandering down to the basement, thinking that this time would settle it. No dice. Luckily, Maestra was about, refinishing her dining room table in her family's driveway. Any time I mention studio time, or talk about a printing press, it's her studio and her press. Aside from being a talented artist, a way cooler Mom than her adolescent and teen children realize, she's a spectacular high-energy blend of insight, nurturing, wicked humor, zen calm (hee! sometimes) and the ability to kick your ass (really. she has a black belt.) So, with that lead in, really all I want to say was that she helped me out. I laid them all around her studio and she walked from one to the other, pointing out merits and detractors. She thinks the gold stars would help the woman. She underscored my fear that a couple lacked focus and picked out which ones struck her as the strongest. Bolstering! I wound up opting for one of two with the garden border. 

So the exercise is, for all intents and purposes, done. If I can rectify the bubbling issues, I will probably go through a wood panel phase, in which I'll slap all manner of prints onto them before slapping myself on the back. Huzzah!