The Next Color is... Violet?

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The Next Color is... Violet?

I'm up to the fourth color on my latest reduction linocut (two more colors to go). After the blue of the sky was printed, a lot of linoleum was removed, and there's not much area left to take ink because I'm down to mostly accent colors. When I was working with the image, I actually enhanced the image with a relatively saturated violet (because, obviously, as an artist, I have the ability to make nature look even better). In the final image, this color will only make up a small portion of the overall area, but the next two colors are much darker and will be much easier to print over the lighter colors.

Violet is a very difficult color to mix with inks, so I used a "canned" version - Speedball's oil-based ink in a tube. I was told that this color would be discontinued, but I pray it isn't true. I can never get as rich a violet from mixing reds and blues currently available. I was expecting to have to add a little red because the color on my screen seemed to shift toward red, but when I mixed it with white, it was so rich and so close to the color I needed, I didn't want to chance it going pastel. I've been mixing my dwindling supply of Speedball inks with Gamblin's oil-based relief inks and it's working very well. Gamblin's titanium white is amazingly opaque - it has become a staple in my palette of relief inks.

Here's the color rolled out, the plate, and the four-color print. I never cease to be amazed at how the different colors look from being rolled out to printed.