New Work: Untitled (Bay Bridge)

Shortly after I finished “Golden Gate” last year I decided I needed to do a companion piece depicting the other bridge in San Francisco. I pulled the first prints of the new piece on Wednesday, and I think it’s pretty interesting how it turned out. Just like on “Golden Gate”, I tried to stretch technically. One of the plates — the sky and water — is cut in two so I could ink the gradient the way I wanted to. When carving the water I limited myself to a rounded edge carving tool to try and make it more “shimmering”. And the cables on the bridge are represented using carved lines against the sky. All three experiments feel pretty successful to me.

When I was printing “Days Getting Shorter”, I experienced how much fun printing multiplate prints can be when the registration is loose. The loose registration on those plates meant that I could focus on inking, colors, and other things, and the registration just sort of happened. The registration on this piece is much tighter, and of the five I printed I only got one where it’s really right on. But even the ones where’s it’s a little off don’t feel like failures to me: I think because there’s so much going on, it’s easy to enjoy other parts of the image. And working on tight registration is something I can practice in upcoming work.