Yesterday I printed the fifth layer on one of the pages in the artist book I’m printing at KKV, and the results made my spirit soar. Today I switched from lithography to intaglio, to create the holes-in-the-screen look I wanted for the second page in the book. After working hard all day to get the impression I was looking for and pretty much failing, I wanted to cry. Instead, I rode my bike to the Baltic and went swimming. Water temp was 62 degrees, air temp was 65 degrees. Cool enough to remind me of what truly matters. Even if my artist book completely fails, I’ve gained much from this residency.

The experience of one day going smoothly and the next full of frustration is all too familiar. Tomorrow could be even worse. Or maybe the printing gods will show up in full force and bless my project for the day. I never know what to expect.

For now, I’ll celebrate what went well yesterday. Finally, with the fifth layer, I’m seeing some magic in the colors and shapes.

With the additional layer of different shades of green, the melon color is more subdued. As with the other layers, I’ve added transparent base to the colored ink, so the previous layers are visible even with this fifth layer.

On this piece of paper I’ve documented the colors used for each of the five shapes, for layer four (top row) and layer five (bottom row). Although I had in mind to make the fifth layer shades of blue-green, after sitting with the print for awhile and looking at colors in my Pantone swatch book, I decided shades of green would play off the melon color better and establish a more thoughtful mood. The blue-green would have been too saccharin.

Tomorrow I’ll print the sixth and, I hope, final layer. I’m leaning toward using colors that are combinations of red, brown and grey with a bit of yellow added. Tomorrow my challenge will be to do two different lithographic print runs. Up until now, I’ve done just one per day. Each run has been taking about three hours, and I’m usually worn out by the end. However, the second run will be for book covers, and I’ll be using just one color of ink, so I might be able to complete the run in just over two hours. We’ll see if the printing gods show up tomorrow…