Value and colour, a struggle to convey a place

Committed to printmaking for the moment, I rolled the sky and sketched with ink onto the plate.  Next I made a provisional print, to remove some of the ink.  I did this by placing a rougher paper than I usually print onto on top of the plate and rubbed lightly with my hand.  The result was a print, but it was not in the least resolved, I didn't intend it to be. These quick sketches can be the start of a pastel drawing. After print two, I painted with pastels on top of print one (above). I was interested in marks and wanted to create some sort of cohesion with marks. I omitted the animals and house from the scene because this version didn't seem to need either motif.

 The next print (above) took the better part of the day. I wanted to keep it painterly and to use colour in a satisfying way.  There are passages that I like but there are many small pieces so the space didn't feel confident and I wasn't satisfied with the values.

When I began this series, a few weeks ago, I wanted to use value to capture the light and mood and imagined using light pastel over prints to tint the image.  I thought I might be able to convey the moodiness of the landscape that way. So, to salvage the idea and to reuse the drawing I'd already done,  I painted back onto the plate with a blackish ink to approximate the feeling of the light. Once printed (onto wet paper this time) I tinted the values.