An Object Lesson in Using the Right Materials for the Job

So, yesterday. Yesterday I spent the entire morning making more of my Year of the Ox prints since I ended up not having enough after submitting 3 to the PROOF print show/exchange.
I made 8 prints – I figured 8 should be enough to get me 3 or 4 good ones, given that each print involves 3 impressions to screw up.
Ladies and germs, how many good prints do you think I got? 3? 4? 8? 2?
Sadly, there was not one good print in the whole mess. After completing them and picking 3 that I thought would do, I looked at the original print run.
Dudes, the leftovers were better than yesterday’s run. Sad, so very very sad.

So here’s where I went wrong:
#1- I have a crappy baren. I bought the only one I could find and afford and it’s just crappy. That said, I think I did OK with it and it was likely the least of my problems.
#2 – My brushes for blending the colours on the block are also crappy. You’re supposed to use these, but I just used shortened stencil brushes for (again) reasons of finance and convenience. I managed OK on some, but mostly not.
#3 – I didn’t get the paint mixes right. As a result, my green is more of a dirty yellow (I think I also used the wrong yellow to start with – I couldn’t remember which one Elisabeth used in the workshop), and the colours are not nearly as delicate as in the first run (though I think this is also affected by #1, #2, and #4). (And looking at the photo now I actually like the richer background…)
#4 – Wrong paper. I think this was the biggest problem. I foolishly not only did not bring a print with me to get the paper, I didn’t even look at one for several weeks before going to get the paper. The paper was too thin and too absorbent either because of the finish or the density. Not sure. Anyhoo, this meant the colours all bled shamefully, and the prints have no nice crisp lines, only mucky, splotchy areas.
#5 – I was doing it because I felt like I had to, not because I was really excited about it. While I still enjoyed doing it, and had been looking forward to it, it wasn’t as thrilling as when I was first learning and had years of pent-up wanting-to-do-it-ness. So I may have been a little less attentive to details.

I had a few castoffs from the first run that I decided are good enough after all, but I still need to use one of the new ones so I picked the least offensive and will send it to someone who likely won’t be bothered by it’s shortcomings.

So yeah. That was my yesterday morning.

P.S. My apologies for the two weeks of radio silence. I have been working on a top secret mission and was only allowed to communicate with the outside world over matters of life and death.
Well, no. I’ve just been spending eight hours a day working on the UTW site update and have needed to avoid the computer on evenings and weekends. The good news is it’s nearly done so I should have a brain again and more thrilling news to report.