Mount Drum

My piece is a six color reduction print that has five layers of carving. I drew inspiration from a photograph that I made in 2020 of Mount Drum from the Glenn Highway. I created this piece by first carving away the pieces that I wanted to stay white, such as the clouds and the snow. Then I printed the yellow and blue layer by inking half of my block with yellow, and half with light blue. Then I carved away the pieces that I wanted to stay yellow or blue. I repeated this process all the way to the darkest color – a green so dark that it is almost black. I made this piece in order to become more comfortable around reduction printing. Reduction printing used to make me anxious because there is no going back once you have carved a color away and once you have started carving, you cannot ever pull that print again. I really enjoyed making this piece and I think that it eased a lot of my worries over having no chances to re-do the prints. I also kept imagining that I was painting and that helped. I am very happy with how my piece turned out. I think that the colors work well together and my registration was very accurate. I also think that the light green showing through the gray road creates an interesting sense of texture that I like.