I keep a small notebook just for registration marks. Not sketches, not notes on the print, just where the marks go. Edition 3 of the Carta series has its own page, with a little diagram, and a second page because the first one was wrong.

Today I pulled eleven sheets and got four I would sign. Nothing dramatic happened, the plate was fine, my wrist was fine. It was the paper. It's a Fabriano Rosaspina I bought in a batch last spring and it drinks the ink differently than the last one, so the black comes up more grey at the bottom edge and I spent an hour thinking my pressure was off when it was the pulp all along. Eleven sheets to find that out. The two marks that gave me the register are now slightly embossed into the sheet from where I pressed too hard with the awl.

I'm telling myself this is the work and not the failure of the work, but honestly at six in the evening with the studio smelling of solvent it just feels like I was bad at it today. The marks are correct though. The marks are always correct.