Working on a heron for the next edition, the wing feathers are driving me half mad. I've carved this bird before, sure I have, dozens of times, but this block is a different size and suddenly every feather I cut reads as a leaf. A leaf! Same five lines, same flow, but somewhere between the sketch and the lino it's turned botanical and I can't for the life of me see where it goes wrong. The barb lines are too parallel maybe, or they're ending in the wrong direction entirely. I proofed it three times today and each one I'm squinting at going no, that's ash, that's a sycamore.

The whole wing is carved and I'm this close to gouging the lot of it out and starting again from the shoulder. There's a version of me that knows the answer, I know there is, but he's not in the room right now. Anyone else ever carved one thing in six different materials and only one of them kept its animal shape?