St Dwynwen part 8

This morning I found e-mail from Mary, co-creator of the East Meets West show.  She's about to go away again, but at least she's fine.  Meanwhile, work continues on the print for the show.  I put in some time cleaning some of the minor defects from the last session of block cutting, then took on the task of cutting out the space in the border around the whole design.

One thing I found in that process is that there were a few knots buried under the wood surface, revealed only as the top layer of wood was cut away.  Small knots, but they are there is places where I had planned to cut and they are too hard to cut away, so they will remain.  As I tell my woodcut students, that is now part of the new design.  I don't think this will be a real problem.  The custom around the saint's holiday (which the image is built around) involves hand carving wooden objects, so a few irregularities in the wood block seems almost expected.  I think I may be done.  A pencil rubbing revealed just a few minor flaws, but I will try to deal with them soon and then pull some test proofs, probably next week, as I'm printing the prototype of my Christmas card.

Speaking of which, when I finished the day's cutting on this block, I turned my attention to my card design, working out the idea in a sketch book.  Got a bit discouraged.  The cards are small, designed to fit in standard check mailer envelopes, and I don't know if I can fit the important parts of the original painting, plus my planned alterations, all in the small space I would have to work with.  If I can't resolve this soon, I may have to come up with a new idea.