What could walking in the park on the super moon night have to do with art making? Lots. I have completed printing two runs, meaning layers of printmaking information, for "The Two Foxes." I've posted the beginning drawing on stone, and the second printing was the negative or background area. The foxes are walking at night in a dense wooded area, and I created an environment for them by pressing leaves into a lithographic ink, etching it, and printing it in a dark green/blue. What is now dark will become light when I print the next layer on it. How? Through contrast of darks and light.
To understand what this means, I went out for the night walk. Think Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are." Most of that story takes place at night, and inexplicably the moon changes from a crescent to full. That's the magic of illustration. Have you ever figured out what color the sky is under a very full moon? Or looked at the different types of leaves in the moonlight? I just observed very carefully the light on giant fur trees, pines, maples, beech and plum trees. Some rules never changes about the turning of light on planes. But what I saw the most was how the dark around the highlighted forms gave the sense of light to each leaf or needle.
So this is what I will do next. Draw thinking of the negative space so that the leaves will come into being as light around my foxes. I've included a pictures of the roller I used for the color ink and the aluminum plate ready of the press. The next layer of printing will be from a photo plate that has been exposed to my drawing on a frosted mylar. It's all just light and dark.
