Croton reduction linocut 4

Croton reduction lincut, the third colour

This one was disappointing. I lost the first four (out of twelve) because of mis-registration and took ages to figure out what was wrong. My system consists of a sheet of the same paper that I'm using for the print run taped to the work surface, with an outline of the block drawn on it, and with narrow strips of lino acting as guides. The guides stayed in place but the tape holding down the paper became unstuck allowing movement to take place. In a nutshell, the block shifted in relation to the guides when burnishing the back of the paper. I now know that I need to devise a better registration system.

After figuring it out and securing the base sheet, there was considerable improvement but it became evident that slight shifts had taken place in the earlier colours. So none of them will be spot-on perfect.

I'm not too cast down. It reminds me of a time some years ago when I was drawing a friend, a successful businesswoman. It didn't go well and the friend commented that she would never choose to do something with such a high failure rate. It made me stop and think ... I'm still thinking ... it's true, in art the failure rate is high but it's one of those things that one accepts as an artist, it's part of the job. The rate improves over time, with practice and experience, this I know for sure, my rate is far better than it was ten or fifteen years ago. Definitely a long term prospect though, no quick miracles in this field.

Right now I'm relatively new to printmaking and expect glitches to occur and one did and no harm, it's good experience. I will continue with this linocut (two more colours) and will be happy if I end up with three or four passable prints.