New lino block cut

As I had mentioned in my first post, the boy with the slingshot was the first time that I had cut a block using an image of a male. I was pretty happy with the final print, so I thought that I'd create another block, for my portfolio...this time with two boys! Pretty ambitious. But when you're on a roll, ya gotta go with it!

I've taken a couple of pictures so that you can follow my progress. I've reworked the pencil sketch several times. The first picture shows a portion of the sketch before I trace it onto the 8" x 10" block. Most of my work is usually formatted vertically but this image will be horizontal. In the second picture, you can see that I've started carving around the gourds in the background. The tracing outline is in red because I've used Saral transfer paper which is a type of lightweight graphite paper.

I don't have any idea how long it will take to completely cut the block. If I can work on it every evening for a couple of hours, without too many distractions, I should be ready to print by the weekend. Right now I'm jumping between trying to get this post done and watching the voting results, locally and nationally.