Blood Draw part 18

 I was up at the Studio today before 11, finding the parking lot relatively empty.  Of course, that makes no difference to me.  I carried my stuff to my space in the basement.  I decided that the most recent block was still too wet to mess with, though I did decide that the proof was dry enough to take home and later would do so.  No, today I was there to work on my Blood Draw project.  Last time I worked on the block was more than a month ago, and that was just fixing a few minor things.   I have had the proof of the whole print hanging on my Studio wall since I printed it, and had figured out at least some more of what I wanted to do with it.  Towards that end, I had brought all the cutting tools with me today, along with my rock/pop book of discs.  

For music I selected my Elastica disc, which has the debut album, and most of the EP that preceded it by many months.  (you can read more about this on this blog back in October of 2022 if you are interested)  It was good loud guitar music that suited my needs today.  I cleared a space on my table and got to work.

I knew I needed to make the background lighter- what was there was just too heavy for the composition.  I did have some fine vertical lines cut in all the areas that weren't heads, which is my usual way of turning black into grays, but this was not enough, and as a result, the composition wasn't working to my satisfaction.  I used a wider gouge to remove a lot of inked wood from the area near the upper left of the block, put similar lines throughout some of the middle, and some fine lines on the far right, to the right of the nurse's head, an area that had been solid black before. The above photo shows how it looked on my table, and below a better view of how the block looks now.

I don't know if I am done with this one yet, but I do know I like it a lot better now.  I will look at my photo and the actual block some more and decide it any more needs to be cut.  I would think that at this point it will be more minor changes, if any, but I'll decide that as I go.  Although I didn't do much to the two main figures, somehow it all seems clearer, and for sure the composition is more balanced.

On my way out I ran into Jeanne up on the 1st floor and she asked my about the print I was holding.  I told her it was my most recent piece, a work I consider in progress, but I was bringing it home to look at.  Also, it was part of the series of the works I had on the wall there.  She liked the print until I mentioned that Johnson's death certificate mentioned syphilis, then she got very scared.  That diagnosis may have been just a guess, since no autopsy was performed, and the disease was endemic in his population.  Besides, he died too young for it to have been a problem yet.  He had enough other problems to deal with.