Week 1

Crosshatching is frustrating. I branched out of the online flower tutorial I’ve been following and tried to draw a mushroom. It didn’t go well. Drawing it from just looking at the reference photo went even worse. So in a fit of anger, I did what I usually do with my art- I traced the outline and went from there. I also reduced the amount of crosshatching, and it looked more like a mushroom.

Whenever I sketch out a potential design for my next woodblock, whatever I end up with always looks like a scribble to me. Something magical happens after it goes on the block and gets carved. “Oh, that’s not so bad I guess.” I turned my mushroom sketch into a tiny linoblock print, and I like it leaps and bounds better than what I did with pen and ink. I think it would go well in combination with some foresty things on fabric.

I ended the week with a leaf and a circle. Next week I might go back to some old familiar styles to make myself feel better.