Emperor Proofs

experimenting with the location of the strength archetypes. i like the above right one a lot.

My advisor likes the one on the above right the best, I also like it a lot.

the above left one is my favorite, if I did this I would make the floor gray and darker gray, but the adviser rightfully pointed out that it doesn't provide a sense of place and that you don't quite get the sense of passages as much in this as in the above compositions. Passages are important to me in this one...

We have emperor proofs. I don't like how the throne and the background merge. I was thinking of subduing the yellow but my adviser gave me a better idea.

what i will do is create a plate that i can print a chromatic gray glaze over just the back ground without effecting the foreground. This will also give a sense of space to the image. She also pointed out that I may want to make the eagle darker so it contrasts highly with the background.

Chromatic gray is a gray color created by mixing two complimentary colors (opposites on a color wheel [red/green, blue/orange, yellow/violet) or by mixing all three primary colors (red, yellow and blue). Varying the percentage of how you much you mix of each of the primaries you can get hues of brown, warm gray or cool gray.

I also noticed that the cut marks didn't print in the above proofs like it did in my keyline prints. this is because i used a larger brayer (ink roller). since the brayer is the size of the plate it doesn't dip down into the open spaces. I'm going to try a few color proofs using a smaller brayer on the black keyline so that I can see if the textural effects I like in the keylines below will translate well in the color whole...oh, oh-oh-oh, i just thought -- i will use a smaller brayer on the keyline to ink the chromatic gray glaze, use a stencil to block the foreground then use the larger brayer to roll black ink. Since the larger brayer wont touch the gray glazed cutmarks I'll achieve two shades on one block! I may not have to carve another plate after all...woo hoo! I had a plausible idear!