Progress V

Here’s the final print. It all came together quite well and I am pleased.

Progress IV

Remember that song from the 60’s sung by Dusty Springfield? It goes something like, “wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’…”? Do you remember all the lyrics to that song? …the part about doing the things he likes to do and wearing your hair just for him? makes my skin crawl but that’s another blog entry. Anyway, that’s where I am with this piece right now. Wishin’ I’d done a few things differently, thinkin’ it looks okay so far, hopin’ those bluebirds aren’t too blue, prayin’ it’ll all come togehter with the next, and final, run through the press.

Progress III

Last night I printed the skin tone, and the redish-brown breasts of the blue birds. I decided to underprint the entire figure for a more consistant black when I print the key block. This was the third pass through the press. When it’s done, this piece will have had five runs through the press. Registration is my greatest challenge and with each pass through the press I worry a little bit more about whether, when the print passes through the press the last time, everything will line up. Sometimes the black lines in the key block covers any imperfections in the registration. Sometimes the registration is hopelessly off and those unfortunate prints end up as proofs at best and in the recycling bin at worst. Sometimes the registration is perfect and I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. Because all three of the these options occur with each and every edition, I generally print twice as many as I hope to have in the final edition. This time I’m working with twenty and hoping for an edition of 10.