Window on the School Below.....

Since Snook are seldom found "solo" in nature, I decided to continue the growth of the school in my relief prints, as well.

Snook Relief print - Ranger black ink on Strathmore 300 series printmaker paper.

You've probably noticed a difference between the last two relief block prints, and this one, however.  You probably noticed that all of these fish look remarkably alike and not just "very similar," as in the past two blocks.  This print is actually created from a third carved block and is the same block printed in a staggering pattern five times.  One of the obvious pros of this type of printing is the opportunity to vary the overall image every time a print is made.  A hidden con that accompanies that pro is the multiple opportunities to smudge a previous print, print on top of a previous print, or create an unappealing pattern.

Snook Relief Print - The School - Black ranger ink on 400 series Strathmore printmaker paper.

For example, if you look at the top three fish on this print, the overlap is ALMOST too much to make the image work well.  The right addition of color will make this print work.  Because all of the fish are exactly the same size, it is difficult to create depth, even with the forced overlap.  A little overlap, as seen in the second and third fish from the bottom, actually created a "little" more depth than the more dramatic overlap of the top three.

Snook Relief Print - The School - Black ranger ink on 400 series Strathmore printmaker paper, and hand painted with FW acrylic inks.

The printing effect that makes this print work the best of these three examples, is placement.  By placing some of the fish either entering or exiting the window of vision, they appear to have some depth AND to be moving.  For so long we have been conditioned to think that all of an image has to be in our window of vision, and yet in real life this is rarely the case.  The location that forced me to think of placing the fish in this pattern was the aquarium.  In that environment, you stand in front of a window, looking into a tank.  As the fish swim by, you are able to see only that portion of the fish that in front of the window - that portion behind the brick and concrete is not visible.  It was a good reminder for me that in the creation of an image, the artist can also vary the entrance and exit points to mirror life.

These colors of these modern snook bare little color resemblance to their silvery kin in the Gulf estuaries.  I'd like to think these are a little happier being able to swim net-free in their relief-print world!