Blood Draw part 20

 Today was not a particularly nice day.  Gray, rainy, etc.  But I've driven through much worse over the years, usually to teach art classes, and I have a car and a Studio with a ceiling above, so I wasn't too worried.  However both my mother and father were concerned with me going up there today because of the weather, and when I got to the building, Jeanne (working the table near the front door) was also concerned that I had come out in the rainy weather.   I had work to do, and a little rain was not going to stop me.

I took a disc out of my pop/rock book and put it in its own case, one that made sense for today.  The disc was one of those I had made for Texas, a collection of favorite songs by the Shazam from all the albums I had at the time.  You can read more about it on this blog back on January, 2020.   The reason I chose it was because it had a song from the band's second album, Godspeed the Shazam, called "Super Tuesday", and today happens to be Super Tuesday, a day when over a dozen states hold their primaries, and at the end of the day often one politician from each party has a big lead toward the eventual nomination.  Of course the Shazam song has nothing to do with politics and uses the occasion as a metaphor for relationships.  ("Tomorrow's Super Tuesday, and the people on the news say, that you're sagging in the polls, but that's how it goes")  Still, seemed like a good day to listen to that disc, though almost every day is a good day to listen to the Shazam.

And I had a plan for working, more cutting on my Blood Draw block.  I haven't proofed it since early January, but I have looked at the now dry block, cut into it, and looked at photos of those cuttings along the way.  That has been enough to tell me what to do each time I cut some more.  Today it was more cutting of the figures, particularly the nurse drawing blood (check out the hand to the right below, as well as the hair and face)

Also some of the self portrait as well.  The main goal with all of this was to make some more separation between the skin and materials found elsewhere in the image. I worked on it until the disc ended, at which point I cleaned up my shavings and headed home.  Where I ended up can be seen below:

Is this piece now ready to print?  Still not sure.  I don't want to print another copy until I am sure I don't want to cut any more.  On the other hand, I don't want to get too fussy with this block.  I can work on this forever, make slight improvements each time, if I let myself.  One of the main points of my Fourth of July series was that I finished each day's block and no matter how it turned out, the next day I'd turn to the next block.  It is improved over what it was two months ago?  Absolutely.  I took more photos today, and I'll study those as I go.  I hope to be done and ready to print it again some time next week, and once again I'll see what I have at that point.  Unless I see a major problem, I'll be satisfied with that second proof, especially as I still don't have a planned place to exhibit the print.