Potential disaster builds

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm having fun playing up the Linocut Drama Theatre here because I know how the story ends and I know I won't be mortified and embarrassed by public failure. This time. You guys already got to see me make an irretrievable mess once this year. Don't go expecting it all the time.

So here we are at colors... wait, where are we? Oh, right. Six and seven. A bright green and a blue.

And here's where the risk I took with sloppy imprecise inking* on the previous layer became potentially problematic. The color below bled through.

This actually happened for a couple of reasons. The first is that the new, lighter color was a bit more transparent than the one below, so it didn't cover as well. The second is that I didn't really wait long enough for that olive green layer to dry, and I got a little "wet rejection."I decided to cross my fingers and hope that some of this bleed-through might actually improve subsequent steps.

(Theatrical aside: *About this sloppy imprecise inking. I feel I must explain that it was more or less on purpose. I didn't want solid, even shapes for this image... I was trying to experiment with something a little more "painterly" to see if I could get away with it. The impatient wet-rejection thing was just a personality defect.)

Forced slow-down ensued. I went off and worked on any number of other things for a while.

Of course, you all saw what happened when I came back. I had taken the margin shims out of my registration jig for another project and forgot to put them back in when I returned to this one. The first print I dropped onto the block was not precisely where it was supposed to be.

Good thing I made extras.

I save some of these boo-boos, you know. Chop 'em up and they make interesting collage bits for cards and such.

Anyway....

Dryness factor overcome and jig readjusted, color 7 went down without too much trouble. I was still feeling pretty uncertain at this point. My in-my-head-only-design called for a fairly dark background and I just wasn't sure how it would all work out. This is the time in almost every reduction print when I find myself entertaining thoughts of cutting a separate block for each color. It could go either way... and as the curtain closes on this scene, the orchestra is playing something half hopeful and half ominous.

At intermission the clown reminds us that today is the last day to jump in and comment for a chance to win "Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists."  Now go get some popcorn. I'll hold your place in line for the restroom and I'll see you back here later.