A Major Mess-Up

I am usually clear headed and do not make absent minded mistakes. In fact, I have never messed up a print due to carelessness prior to last week. Reduction prints come with the possibility of ruining the block and losing an edition, but I did not think it would happen to me. 

I started struggling with this print with the very first color because the paper I chose to use was peeling up, sticking to the ink. But I made the decision to carry on. I figured that the subsequent colors would cover up the "dry" areas and it would all be okay in the end. Five colors in, it was not okay so I decided to change a few things. I had printed half the edition with the brown color below to add a dark value to the trees. I stopped and carved out the trees to keep them light so as not to deal with the areas where the ink was not sticking to the paper. It looked okay with the light colors. I printed the remaining prints with dark blue shadows. The plan was to come in the next day, print the brown ones with a layer of dark blue, then carve the block and print all with the final darest color. I would then end up with two editions--one with light trees, one with darker trees--but all would have blue snow shadows.

Silly me. I came in and started hacking away. As always, I was in a hurry. I did not think, I just started carving. Halfway through carving all the blue shadow areas away I realized what I had done. I now have 13 prints with brown snow that cannot be changed.

 

I was able to finish the other half of the edition with the right colors, but lost a few to registration errors. I think I ended up with an edition of six (I started with 24).

I can't dwell on the time lost. I put these away so I do not have to look at them and started a new print...must keep moving forward...