Good news/bad news...

Gave up on the acetate sheets, pilfered some acrylic from the spouse (and mooched his scribes, too), and had better success with the drypoint bit. This is a proof of the second design (i'll probably go back to the goose later, but this was more suited to the theme of the print exchange i signed up for, and - at the scale i had to work on for that - lino just wasn't cooperating).

The bad news? After i'd pulled the one decent proof pictured here, i came home from an errand to find the plate in pieces on the floor. Back to the drawing board for the print exchange...

Not quite ready for prime time...

I got a bit of a wild hair on Saturday to try my hand at drypoint - a printing technique that involves scribing into a plate, inking the plate, wiping most of the ink off, and pressing onto dampened paper to transfer the ink that remains in the scribed lines. It didn't go entirely as planned, of course, but the process and the troubleshooting has been kinda fun. It's still not there yet, but i think it's got promise. I was working from a photo of the neighbor's self-important goose. (Come to think of it, "self-important goose" is probably redundant...)

Variance and seredipity

Just as i was contemplating hand-coloring the eyes on a few of the new prints, i discovered a loud but serendipitous lime green frame... i expect i'll have to go back and pick up a few more.

Been meaning to...

After stopping at the meetinghouse today to talk with an art conservator about a picture there that needs some care and feeding, i decided to take a short walk around the burying grounds - it was fascinating to see how plain - or not - the stones were (where there were stones), and to see which families opted for carving "4th month" instead of "April," and to look for the heartbreaks and mysteries that always crop up in old graveyards: the little boy with dates 1916-1919 (was it influenza?), the stone with no name, only "Daughter of..."

No one else was there, so i went ahead and snapped a few pictures. My favorites of the lot:

Paybacks

Lulubelle J. Fuzzbutt (it's a long story) was, briefly, my grandmother's cat, but landed here after Grandma died. She loves people and attention, and bullies other cats. She isn't actually dumb as two thick planks, but has a tendency to hurtle through life without thinking (e.g., an attempt to rub against my leg turns into a somersault, which turns into tumbling down half a flight of stairs...). She's cost me an astronomical amount at the vet's, mostly following her decision to eat a spool of thread.

I decided it was time for her to help pull her weight around here - and i was looking for something straightforward to carve in between the hen blocks and a half-hatched idea for another multiple color print - so i adapted a photo i'd taken, and sat down to carve.

I'm still trying to work out what to title the print... (if inspiration strikes you, feel free to leave a comment!)

Experimentation (or trial by fire)

I like the county fair, because it's a good, deadline-enforced kick in the pants to get some lingering projects done and to try some new things. This year, i decided it was as good a time as any to start to play with multiple blocks in the prints, and so:

It's just a quick proof, while i'm making sure of how it works, and the best paper and inks for this one. It isn't, perhaps, the simplest design to pick for experimenting with registration - getting everything lined up just so, so that the colors from each block fit together and interlock the way they should - and that made the carving a slow process, but soon i'll be printing some up for the shop!

All set

...or not. Couldn't quite decide whether i ought to add pectin to today's batch of black raspberry jam. The mixed berry jam that i do a little later in the season is usually fine sans pectin, since the berries have enough of their own, but the black raspberries are always a little... unpredictable. So i figured i could set it on the stove for a while, and if it didn't look like it was starting to gel, i could always add a bit of pectin.

Of course, it was well into the 90s today, so with a pot of proto-jam on one burner and a massive boiling water canner on the next, i got impatient and went with the pectin - not the full amount, but a bit. Only i discovered (belatedly, as i was ladling jam into jars) that i hadn't mixed it in all that well, so it looks like i've got two jars that are set, one that's sort of halfway, and four that are on the syrupy side.

Still, i know from past experience that syrupy black raspberry goop has its uses: among other attempts at salvaging un-set jam, i've made a killer black raspberry chocolate chip ice cream, and a lovely, summery lemon cake filled with black raspberry syrup and frosted with lemon buttercream. Not too shabby.