Some weeks you print, some weeks you just do admin

Guess what kind of week I had. (Hint: It wasn't the kind that involved a baren.)

It's kind of nice to be able to tick things off one's "to-do" list, though. With two new prints drying and a couple of contract jobs awaiting feedback, this past week seemed like a good time to tackle several items on my bloated task list, particularly those with end-of-March deadlines. So I got some photography done, filled out and submitted some jury applications, organized files for an upcoming contract job, and worked on my sadly-neglected website. (I still need to sort out the galleries to reflect the work done in the past year, but it's getting there.)

One of these prints is not like the others....

Both of the recent pieces were dry enough to spread out on the floor and sort out how many would make the cut for the edition so I did that, too. It's always satisfying to see them all together.

By today I was ready to start something new, so here's the mysterious beginning of a linocut that, as promised, should will have only 5 color passes. Already I want 6... but I'm determined to try to meet this self-imposed challenge. I'm taking the opportunity to try a new mark-making technique or two, too. In this first pass I used a book-binding awl to "punch" small white dots in the block.

I'm also printing on Hosho paper that may or may not have the sizing issues that forced me to abandon its use. I've got a stack of it, so I need to find something to do with it. I'm hoping that keeping the number of ink passes low will avoid problems. We'll just have to see, won't we?