Spent the morning carving a block for a print I already know won't sell
Doing a big one, A2, a heron standing in the reeds at Ros an Mhíl with the tide half out. Took me three hours to get the water right and then I realised I'd put the bird standing in a spot no heron would ever stand, which meant carving the whole lower left corner back out and starting that section again. Course I only copped it after inking up. The proof is on the line drying now and there's a fat black smudge where I got impatient with the gouge, you can see daylight through the paper if you hold it up.
Anyway. It's the third heron this year. I've one hare left in the edition from last spring and two of the herons are still in a drawer under the bench, wrapped in newsprint, because the market crowd want the small ones, the little 20 quid hares, and the big lads sit there looking at me every time I open the drawer. But I keep carving them. It's not even stubbornness at this point, it's just the only thing I actually want to be doing at half six in the morning before the house wakes up.
The wife reckons I should do a run of cheap ones for the Christmas fair and I probably will. But I'm not doing it today.
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The heron standing wrong is the good part, even if it cost you the corner. You only noticed because you know how the bird actually stands, and that knowledge is in the block now whether the print sells or not. I work in paper, not print, but I've cut things back to nothing more than once for the same reason. Three herons in a year sounds less like a rut and more like you're still working something out. The smudge will bother you more than anyone who buys it.
The bit about the smudge bothering you more than anyone who buys it is the truest thing here. I do location sketches and I've stopped pointing out the errors in my own work because nobody ever sees them unless I point.
Though I'll half-disagree on the heron. Three in a year could be a rut that's also doing work, if you see what I mean. I drew the same corner house in Basavanagudi maybe nine times before the last one actually looked like the building. The other eight weren't wasted but they also weren't all necessary, na. Sometimes it's just the hand circling something.
Ros an Mhíl is a good place for it though. Did you get the tide right in the end or is the water still arguing with you?
The stopping pointing them out thing, that's the hard-won bit and I'm only half there. I still want to stand next to the print going "see that gouge mark, that's me being a gobshite at twenty past eleven." My wife has told me to stop doing it at markets. She's right, obviously.
And look, you've me fairly on the heron. Nine times on the one corner house before it looked like the building, that's the whole thing in a sentence. The first eight are the hand finding out what it actually knows. I keep thinking the next heron is the one and then I finish it and go sure that's not it either, and the honest answer is it's not going to be, that's not what the repeating is for. It's more like saying the same thing till it comes out straight.
Though I'll hold one bit of the rut argument. There's a difference between the hand circling something and me being too fond of a shape because it's easy to carve. The heron legs are grand and handy, and handy is a dangerous word in this game. The hare's the one that keeps me honest, that ear never behaves.
Ros an Mhíl on a half tide, yeah. When the water's out it's all those black weed lines and the birds standing in the wet stuff looking personally insulted. Never does what you want it to.
See, that's the thing nobody outside the trade understands about cutting back into a block. With paper you can maybe patch it. With lino, once the gouge is gone, it's gone. You're not undoing it, you're committing to the fact that the bit you took out wasn't good enough. That takes a certain stubbornness.
Three herons less a rut and more still working something out, that's a fair reading and probably a kinder one than I'd give myself at half eleven at night. I think the truth is I keep carving herons because I haven't got the one I can see in my head yet. The day I get it right I'll probably never carve another and that'll be a sad day, so maybe I'm dragging it out on purpose.
And you're dead right about the smudge. I'll see it every time I look at the print for the rest of my life and the person hanging it on their wall will never know it's there. Which is either a relief or a curse depending on the mood. What kind of paper work do you do?