Traveling Riverside Blues part 9

 After studying the image of the first proof over the weekend, I had decided what was needed on the block.    I had to work on the standing female figure for sure, make her look a little more human.  The table holding the lamp was a little confusing, and could benefit from a little more cutting.  The bottom of the feet of the male figure in bed bothered me a little, and they could use something.  And the wall- in my hurry to print a proof, a few blobs of ink ended up on the brayer and thus ended up on my block.  I'm not sure if any of them printed (I tried to scrape and blot them away), but a few spots on the wall seemed a little too dark, and that could account for it.  Or it could just be the way I cut the wall- the only way to find out was to see the block itself.  So I grabbed my cutting tools and some blues discs and headed up to Ocean Grove. 

I looked over my block and proof.  The printed proof was dry, which is good to know for when I have to frame things.  The block itself, despite my blotting of the whole thing, was still a little inky.  Lucky, I have a soap that cuts through that ink fairly well.  I pulled up the photo I took of the not yet inked block as a reference.  I got out a mirror and looked at the block, proof, and camera to see if it helped at all.  I found that my pencil didn't show up on the inked wood, so that wouldn't help.  In the end, it was just a bunch of free handing, drawing with tools, so to speak.  Most of the time was spent on the female figure, but it needed the most work.  This is where my camera was most useful, as it showed what I had drawn with pencil on the wood, directly from the model.  I made changes to the face, the hair, and parts of her body, all of which I think helped.  For the male figure, mostly I just looked at the block itself, and recut some bits that seemed to be there, but had filled in with ink.  The wall and table were just handled by looking at the block and clarifying things.  I don't think the blobs of ink affected the wall, but I cut out all reference to those anyway.    Results looked like this:

All that took the duration of my blues radio show disc (which worked today, so go figure, and you can read more about it on July of 2022 if you are interested) and about the time it ended, I was done with my planned cutting.  I won't know for sure if I was successful until I print it, but right now it looks better.  I'll save the printing for another day.  For now, I cleaned up the few shavings of wood on my table, washed all the ink off my hands, put the block back in my rack where it came from, and headed home.