We first began by making two sketches of unique, textured animals set in a background that would be realistic for them in real life. At first, I had difficulty making this a more geometric sketch focused on lines representing the texture. My first elephant was more focused on the tints and shades to make it appear more 3D. After drawing a few more elephants I finally figured out how to represent the wrinkles of the elephant's skin with minimal lines. Also, the grass proved difficult at first because it was hard to show such thin blades of grass. I think cutting out the inside of the grass on the linoleum really makes it look thinner like the real grass. So after my sketch was finished, I began tracing it onto the tracing paper and then onto the linoleum. The linoleum was hard to trace on and a lot of it I had to fill in free hand, such as the tree branches. Then came the printing part. The hardest challenge for me was to not roll on too much paint. A lot of my cuts in the linoleum such as the texture on the tree bark and the wrinkles on the elephant were not very deep since they were so narrow. Thus, my first few prints did not come out as detailed because the paint had filled in some of the grooves on the linoleum.
