dear dave,

what a crazy unexpected difficult couple of days at the corcoran!

This "birds on a branch" print is rough! Yesterday I took forever to print the branches. Everything went wrong over and over. All I wanted for myself was to have two panels, branches printed well. 3 hours later I had this accomplished. But it seriously should have taken me 1.

I mixed my colors, and set myself up for today--an early start and an all day session.

I got in this morning, made my screens, then failed. I decided quickly to just break the 2 prints up. Do one complete print, then go to the next with new screens. It was a great decision, allowing me to move much quicker without constant clean up and dry time.

Anyway, the first print turned out like crap. I printed all the bottom layers (great), then moved on to the black outlines.

At this point the entire print is at stake. There is no recovery. I was soooooo careful, but of course the ink blobbed and smeared. I fixed it a bit, unhappy, but not crushed. I moved on to the next bird, and it came out even worse.

Ok - still in the game. I tried hard to stay cheerful. But all was lost! I printed the last bird, reprinted the middle bird, but it was all long gone. (Not sure why I'm going into all this detail about all this, but I am)

LUCKILY - I moved on to the second print (determined!), and it worked out well. I decided to skip printing the cardinal for today, and try redrawing it. That was a great choice, and probably would have saved the first print.

At this point its 4pm. My hands are covered in ink, I clean up, put everything away, and make plans for Monday. Then very happily I realize I have a third version I started Saturday, and scraped early monday.  With just a little effort I realize I can get this all finished too, and I have the extra screen ready to go.

I rallied (turkey and swiss form starbucks & diet coke) and went for it. And very happily it all worked out.  Maybe I learned from my 1,000 mistakes?

So it's 5:47 tuesday. I have two great prints 80% done, and a few days off. Won't be back to printing until Monday.

What a road!