Mollie Stone's Commission

At Renegade San Francisco in July, I met the owner of Mollie Stone's, a boutique grocery chain here in the Bay Area.  He was really drawn to my Yosemite Valley linocut print, and asked me if I would consider doing a portrait of his store in Sausalito in the same style.  I said sure, and after agreeing on a price, I went to work.   

The first step was getting a photo to reference for my carving.  My first one looked like this:

I waited for a half hour for that car to move.  I bagged it and went back another day to get this shot:

Then, through the miracle that is Photoshop, I combined the two to make this as my master image:

I have walked people through my creative process before, but I'll do it again here.  I'm not afraid to share :)

First thing I do is to make a tracing of the photo:

Next, I cover my block of linoleum with Saral transfer paper, then re-trace my drawing:

This is what I have after the re-trace - now my linoleum is ready to carve:

For this project, I tucked in for about 20 hours of carving.  Here are some shots of the progression:

Toward the end, I was joking that this was more of a study of palm trees than the store... 

But I was finished, and I was ready to give it ink.  Always my favorite part:

I'm pretty happy at this point.  Now to put it on my etching press:

I soak my paper (Rives BFK) in water so I get a really nice emboss on each print.  Here is what it looks like on the press bed once it has been cranked through:

And the final step, the "reveal."  You've seen it already, but here it is again:

My client was thrilled with the result.  So was I.  I'm looking forward to doing more.  

If you have a commission you'd like me to do, just let me know.  I love this kind of thing.