Spent a tenner on a brayer last week and it's the most useful thing I've bought in ages
So the small cheap brayer I'd been using for years finally gave up, the roller went egg-shaped on me around last Tuesday, and I went in to the art shop in town half intending to buy another cheap one and came out with a proper hard rubber one for a tenner.
I know. Wild spending.
But here's the thing, I've been printing the same block of a heron for about three weeks now trying to get an edition of twelve out of it, and I was blaming the lino, blaming the ink, blaming the damp weather in the shed, and it turns out the whole time it was the brayer. The cheap one was pressing uneven, so the middle of the block was picking up ink lovely and the edges were starving. Twelve prints in and the last six look like a different block entirely.
So many years at this and I still spend a fortnight giving out about the wrong yoke. The block was grand. I was the problem.
Trimmed the first six in half for test prints, which killed me slightly, but they're in the bin now and I've moved on with my life.
Anyway, the heron's nearly there. Much darker at the edges now, properly moody, which is what I wanted all along.
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Mm, ain't it something how the tool you been cussing turns out to be the one doing the cussing back at you. I quilt, and I had a rotary cutter blade go dull on me one time, and I blamed my own hands for near a week before I thought to change it. That heron been waiting on you to get right. Twelve is a good number too, that's not a small thing to pull off. Good luck with the rest of the edition.
The dull blade thing hurts because you start thinking your hands forgot how to work. I did the same with charcoal for months, convinced I'd lost it, and I'd just been buying the cheap stuff that crumbles and skips. Switched and suddenly I could draw again. Nothing changed but the stick.
Twelve off one block is no joke either. Getting the heron right twelve times without going insane is the real edition.
The charcoal one is a killer, because the cheap stuff actively fights you, skips and crumbles and you're sitting there thinking your hand's gone to hell when it's a two euro stick of dust doing it. I had the same years back with a set of carving gouges, cheapest ones in the shop, and I near convinced myself I'd lost every bit of feel I ever had. Bought one good tool and the hands came back overnight. The hands were fine the whole time. The hands were grand.
Twelve off the one block is a mug's game though, I'll not pretend otherwise. By number nine you're carving nothing and just trying to remember how you stood for number one. Same stance, same pressure, same three breaths before you lay it down. Do it different once and that one's the odd man out and you'll spot it across a room.
Ah here, the dull rotary cutter is a killer because a blade doesn't announce itself, does it. It just quietly gets worse and you're there at midnight going "have my hands always been this thick?" I did the exact same with a gouge last year, convinced I'd lost the run of me after twenty years. Wasn't even blunt, the handle had a hairline crack and it was flexing on me.
And you're dead right on the twelve. I keep telling people an edition of twelve sounds like nothing until you're standing over the drying rack counting them and praying the last one pulls as clean as the first. Half the battle is just not getting bored of the block. Heron's been a patient creature about it, to be fair to him.
Quilting though, I'd say you've the same breed of problem. Everything's fine until one bit of kit goes and suddenly it's your whole self that's suspect. What are you working on at the minute, or is it one of those projects that's been on the go since a rainy Tuesday two years ago like half of mine?