Pulled an edition of forty and every single one came off the block clean

There's a proper black magic to the first pull of an edition. You've sharpened the gouges, you've proofed it till you're sick of the sight of it, and then you ink the bastard and you hold your breath because forty sheets is a long way and the lino's only going to get softer and mushier and more treacherous the whole way down.

Anyway. Forty prints off the whale mooring block today, every last one clean. Not a dry spot, not a slip, not a bit of the fine line work packing up. The last one came off as good as the first and I near laughed out loud in the empty studio. The dog looked at me like I'd lost the run of myself entirely.

There's a lot of the job you can't control, sure. Paper that decides to cockle on you, ink that goes off, a Tuesday. But that one hour, that run of forty, that was mine. Nobody else's. Felt like the whole craft thing was worth a damn today.

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Ramesh Jha·2d

Congratulations ji. Forty clean pulls is truly something. In our Mithila work we do not have the block printing, we draw directly, but this same thing I know well, how the material changes under your hand as you go, how the last piece must match the first in spirit. It is not only skill, it is a kind of patience that most people cannot sit with. I am happy for you that the block held true till the end. Such days remind us why we do this work at all. 🙏

Lukas Brandt·2d

There's something in that word you used, spirit. The first print has a kind of nerve to it, the last one has tiredness and steadiness both. If they match it's not because the hand stayed the same, it's because it learned something over those forty passes. Different tools, same arithmetic underneath. Glad you recognised the thing he did, because twenty people will congratulate him and maybe two will know what actually happened in that studio.

Niall DohertyOP·2d

That's exactly it, now. The first pull is nerve and the last is something else entirely, and if the paper comes off clean on sheet forty it's not luck and it's not stubbornness, it's that the hand settled into it somewhere around pull fifteen and just knew. Same arithmetic underneath, that's the phrase I'll be stealing off you, sure you've given me a gift there.

The other thing people don't see is the lino itself. By the end of forty the block's gone softer under the ink and the fine lines are starting to mush, so a clean last pull means you were reading the block as it changed and adjusting on the fly. That's the real craft. Most of the congratulations I'll get today will be for pulling the prints at all. The two of you who know what the last one took, that's the acknowledgment that actually lands. Grand to meet someone who's looked down the length of an edition and seen it properly.

Niall DohertyOP·2d

Ah now, thank you, and you've hit the very heart of it there. The block and the brush are different tools but it's the same patience underneath, isn't it? That bit where your hand has to trust what the eye decided days ago, and you just keep going steady even when the material starts telling you it'd rather quit.

Mithila work, that's the fine line painting, sure it is, the patience in that would frighten me. I'd have the jitters by the second hour, never mind keeping a whole piece alive from the first stroke to the last. You're doing something older than printing in a lot of ways, drawing straight onto the thing itself.

But I know exactly what you mean about the last piece matching the first in spirit. There's a fella I know who says the print gods only let you have maybe one clean edition a year, to keep you humble. Today was my one, so I'll be paying for it in cut fingers and bad proofs before Christmas, I'd say. 🙏 to you too, and to your hand and your patience both.

Ramesh Jha·2d

Congratulations ji, this is no small thing. In our work we say the hand knows the line only after many repetitions, and even then the material can betray you. Forty clean pulls from one block means your discipline was good from the first moment to the last. That is the difference between someone who makes art and someone who simply tries.

In Mithila painting we do not have the pulling of prints, but we have the same test, the fine line work, one mistake and the whole surface is spoiled. When a painting is done and not a single line has wavered, there is a quiet happiness that nobody else can fully understand. I think you had that same feeling today, and the dog was simply not able to appreciate it properly. 😊

Wishing your block gives many more clean editions.

Niall DohertyOP·2d

Ah now, thank you ji, and the hand knowing the line only after many repetitions, sure that's the very gospel and I'd write it over the door of my studio if the wife would let me near the paint. That bit you said about material betraying you, that's the thing people don't see from the outside. They look at a clean print and think it's all nerve and talent, but it's mostly just remembering the last forty times it went wrong on you and doing the opposite.

And I love that you've the same test in the painting, even without the block. There's no hiding in fine line work, is there? The brush has no mercy and the lino has no second chances either. When it all holds together there's that quiet happiness you're talking about, and sure nobody else in the house understands it but you, and that's almost the best part of it. The dog certainly doesn't. He'd rather I was doing anything else entirely.