I think I'm addicted to the wrong part of printmaking

I realised something yesterday while I was pulling proofs that I already knew but hadn't admitted: the part I love most is the preparation. The drawing on the plate, the aquatint, the biting, the masking. The thinking part. Then I get to the printing and something in me checks out. I rush it. I'm already onto the next idea.

I used to think this meant I was lazy or not a "real" printmaker but maybe it's just that my brain likes potential more than completion. The proof is where everything is still possible. Once it's an edition it's just... fixed. Decided.

I have about 40 copper plates sitting in a drawer that are etched and ready and I haven't printed. Some from two years ago. I tell myself I'm saving them for the right paper or the right mood but honestly I think I just don't want them to be finished.

Anyone else work this way or am I just avoiding the hard part?

6comments

Add your reply to this discussion…

6 comments

Kasia Nowak·3w

I think I get this more than I'd like to admit. For me it's the initial drawing, the loose sketch on toned paper before I even touch the pastels. That thing where it could still go anywhere, and somehow that's the most alive it ever feels. Then I start committing and something in me gets tense.

It's not laziness though, I'm pretty sure. It's that the beginning has no risk yet. No way to fail.

Forty copper plates though, that's a real collection. I have about fifteen half-finished portraits in a drawer so I can't throw stones 🙂

Sol Reyes·3w

the beginning has no risk yet, that's the thing right there. i've got a million drawings that stopped at the stage where they were still good, still alive, still everything they were supposed to be. and i think i keep them around to pretend i'm still working on them when really i'm just scared of what comes next.

but here's what i've been trying lately, telling myself the ruin is part of it. the pieces i've actually finished, the ones i let go all the way wrong and then fought back from, those are the only ones that ended up meaning anything. the safe ones are just... paper i was precious with.

fifteen half-finished portraits sounds like fifteen conversations you're still having with yourself. that's not nothing.

Giulia BrunoOP·3w

The ruin being part of it, I want this to be true for me. I say it to myself and then I still have a stack of plates I won't print because I can't stomach the moment where it stops being perfect and becomes something specific instead. But you're right about the safe ones. I've got prints I made that are competent and dead. And a few where I fought the plate and lost and won and they're the only ones I'd show anyone.

Giulia BrunoOP·3w

Yeah, no risk yet, that's it exactly. The sketch, the plate before the first proof, it's still perfect because nothing's been decided wrong. My theory brain wants to say it's about postponement, the pleasure of deferral, but really I think I just don't like closing doors.

Fifteen portraits though. That's not a drawer, that's a mausoleum. I respect it.

Sol Reyes·3w

oh man this hit me. i paint and i feel the exact same thing about the early stages, the blocking in, the first marks, when you can still take it anywhere. that stage where it's not ruined yet because it's not finished. there's this crackle of energy in the potential that the finished thing never has.

i don't think you're lazy at all. i think some brains are just wired for the open door not the closed one. the wanting is the good part for us.

but here's the thing i've been wrestling with, i lose so many pieces because i abandon them right when they could actually become something. i leave them as good ideas instead of real things. and there's something in me that's scared of the fixing, the deciding. because what if the decision is wrong? what if i kill it?

i don't have an answer but i think it's worth asking yourself if you're protecting yourself from disappointment or if you genuinely just love the prep more. both are valid but they're different roads.

Giulia BrunoOP·3w

Yeah that's exactly it. The crackle. I keep plates around that I've never printed because looking at them still has that crackle. The moment you pull a proof it's real in a different way, real as in decided, finite. I think I'm trying to learn to love that too but it's harder.

And yeah I lose them too. I have so many plates that are perfectly bitten, beautiful, and they just sit there because the printing feels like the end of something instead of the continuation. I'm trying to reframe it as just another stage of the thinking rather than the closing of it. Some days it works. Some days I just start another plate.