If I was a few years younger, had less patience, or wasn't such a stubborn fool, this piece of linoleum would have ended up tossed out of the window as late as last night when I committed to finally printing it after starting it almost 6 months ago.
Based on a trip to Virginia for Thanksgiving, the image was a culmination of watching hours of bloody video games with no less than 5 military in laws and friends as well as spotting Turkey Vultures for the first time in my life flying over the farm fields along the drive to and from Virginia.
I started the piece as soon as I got back from the trip, instantly having problems with coming up with the image I wanted. The initial drawing, (PIC #1 below), was what I initially came up with. That image sat on my desk until I finally gave up in December. I believe in January, I decided to give it a go again, this time by not finishing the initial drawing and starting out with a new, relatively different concept.
Somewhere between January and May, the piece was drawn, redrawn, redrawn again and then cut, little by little until I actually finished cutting it last night while I was printing it. One of the problems with putting one of these pieces on hold is that, there's a lack of continuance, the things I would normally discover and fix as I'm working on the piece become forgotten. So, as a result of that, I did my test print and realized that some of it wasn't working. At this point, I figured, I've waited this long, don't kill it now, try to fix it and call it done.
Having said that, I'm not completely pleased with it, but feel that a lot of my perceived questioning will be fixed with some color added to the image.
Live and learn. Glad that's done.
ORIGINAL CONCEPT (Drawing on linoleum)
2ND CONCEPT (Drawing on linoleum)
CUT LINOLEUM
FINAL PRINT
