I've been carving the same basic composition of a sitting hare for about two years now, on and off. Same pose, same rough size, and every time I think I've got it licked I pull a proof and the head's wrong or the ear's too stiff or the whole thing just sits there on the paper like a stuffed toy. Dead.

Anyway I cut a new block last week out of sheer stubbornness, Japanese vinyl this time instead of the battleship grey I usually use, because why not change everything, and I pulled a proof this morning and I swear to God it's the first one that actually breathes. There's a life in the eye that wasn't there before. The line down the flank has the right weight to it. I don't know what I did different, or maybe I know exactly but can't put words on it. Just years of getting it wrong till one day you don't.

Anyone else have that one subject or composition you keep coming back at because it won't let you go? The one you're not done with yet.