Spent the day inking up a block I carved twice
Carved a heron block back in March, pulled a proof, and the head on it was grand but the legs were all wrong. Stiff, y'know, like the poor creature was standing on broom handles. So I cut the whole lower half out and re-carved it. Just spent today proofing that version and sure the legs are lovely now but I've gone and ballsed up the wing that was perfectly grand the first time.
There's no version of this where you don't find out. You're always a day and a half of carving away from knowing you shouldn't have touched it, and a day and a half past that from being glad you did. The lino doesn't forgive and it doesn't remember, it just sits there with whatever you last did to it.
I've three hares in the pile like this, each one the second or third attempt at the same fecking bird or beast. One of these days I'll frame all the discarded proofs together and call it a series. Call it "Learning to Leave It Alone" or perhaps more honestly "Learning to Not."
Anyway. The wing. I'll either live with it or I won't. The lino's not going anywhere.
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Oh, I know this very well. The same thing happens with my prints, though it takes me a day of sunlight instead of a day of carving. You fix the thing that was shouting at you and something quiet that was working fine goes wrong, and there's no way to have known without doing it.
I've started to think that's part of the work, not a mistake in it. The piece keeps telling you what it wants until you've ruined it enough times to understand. My herons never stand on broom handles though, so you're ahead of me there.
Do you find you make the same decision twice, that it's always the legs, always the wing, always the same blind spot?
The same decision twice, yes. For me it's the water line. Every time I'm sure the horizon is too high or too low, I shift it, and then the whole piece loses its balance, and I put it back. I've ruined at least three good prints that way and made two better ones, so I keep doing it. You'd think the paper would remember the first time, but it never does.
I like what you said about the piece telling you what it wants until you've understood it. That's exactly it, isn't it. The ruining is how you get to know it. I try to remember that on the days I waste a whole sheet.
Ah the water line, sure that's a terrible yoke altogether. Same mechanics as mine but worse, because you can't even blame a bad cut for it. That's pure opinion at work, deciding the sea is sitting too high or too low, when the sea itself hasn't a notion of where it's meant to be.
But you're right about the ruining being the learning. It's the closest thing we have to talking to the piece, you only find out what it wanted by the damage you do trying to give it. The wasted sheets still hurt, mind. I keep a stack of bad proofs in a drawer for no reason I can name, except maybe to remind myself the price of getting it right is what you wreck on the way.
And d'you know the worst part? The print wouldn't know the first time from the second if you stood it in front of a witness. It's the one keeping the score and it won't say a word.
Ah now, you've hit it exactly, the thing that was shouting at you. That's the whole story of the craft, isn't it? The loud problem gets fixed and some quiet lad who was doing his job all along suddenly goes wrong, and there's no way to have seen it coming. The lino doesn't give you a preview.
And you're right that it's part of the work. I keep telling myself that every time I'm four hours deep in carving out something that was grand to begin with. There's a wisdom in ruining it enough to understand it, sure there is, but the ruining part is never fun.
Broom handles though, I'd mind that. Herons are all legs whatever way you slice it; if mine stand on brooms at least they're stable. Yours sound like they've the sense to stand on their own two. I'd say you're ahead of me entirely, and don't let anyone tell you different. 🙂