Making a Living part 2

 

Another nice day today, so time for part 2 of my printing of the boardwalk block.  Plus I had another reason to be up at the JSAC- last night Nichole sent the teaching agreement letter, and that needed to be returned in order for things to go forward with classes.  So after lunch, I drove up to Ocean Grove. 

I had left the Japanese paper up there, so that was one less trip I had to take today from my car to the Studio.  I had hoped things would go a little faster today, with the block still having some ink from yesterday, but this was not the case.  Since the item of the day was a boardwalk print, I decided to play some Bruce as my musical background.  After all, even though my after sunset image is largely made up, I did take some general inspiration from Bruce's favorites- the Asbury Park boardwalk he sung about, and the Manasquan boardwalk, a place he gets seen on a regular basis.  This was my home burned selection of songs from 1973 to 1995, two discs.

Actually, before I did anything with the boardwalk print, I first went to the office.  Once again, Nichole's car was in the parking lot, but she was missing.  So I followed her directions and left the letter on her desk.  I assumed that she had a copy of my inoculation/booster card from the first round of classes, so I didn't need to worry about leaving a new photocopy of it.  Last night I had emailed another copy of the two page document that broke down the drawing and painting classes, week by week, plus the list of materials.  All part of the fun.  As of now, the plan is for me to once again be teaching drawing on Saturday mornings, and basic painting with acrylics on Saturday afternoons.  I don't know if the drawing is beginner or advanced, or both.  I do know that the next round of classes begins for me on June 11, 2022. This week the current students will be offered a chance to sign up for classes, and I think that the listings are open to all the week after that.  As with before, how much I make will depend on how many people sign up.  If they sign up.

With the school stuff taken care of, time to work on printing.  Got out a new sheet of the okawara, made lots of pieces of masking tape, since they tend to start falling apart after a few inches, and removed the tape from the block that had been useful yesterday.  I also took a few minutes to use my good tools and remove a few spots that had picked up ink yesterday.  Now they wouldn't pick up ink again.  

All together, it took a little over two hours to print another copy of the print, when you include both the original inking and all the re-inking that needed to be done. But in the end, I had a second satisfactory print.  There was one slight tear from rubbing, but it was small and I can repair that easily once the whole thing has dried.  Once again I hung it up to dry on my recently repaired tack wall, but this time I had to climb up on the cabinet and hang it higher than yesterday's proof. My patron mentioned that she'd be gone this whole week, so they may as well stay up there on the tack wall for now.  Maybe I start coloring next week, assuming I have the watercolors.  Probably tomorrow I'll stay home and check what colors I have against a colored copy of the print I have at home, and see what I have.

Around 4:30 I was finally finished with printing and cleaning up, and so loaded my car.  Saw Nichole's car was still in the lot, so I decided to go to the office via the outside entrance.  She was there, so I verified that she had received my teaching letter (yes) and she was all set on information.  She said she'd send me a copy of what she planned to post, but that can wait a few days if it needs to.

Once again today's photo is from my extensive files, probably from the last time I printed this, over 10 years ago.  But it's what you would have seen if you were there today.