…little row of houses…

Often, when I have an idea, and I try it and it doesn’t work quite right, I very maturely pitch a fit, throw it in the corner and refuse to look at it ever again. I am an excellent adult like that. Sometimes though, the failed project sticks in my brain and demands to be revisited. Yesterday’s print project was one of those, to the point the title of this pose has been in my drafts folder for at least two blogtobers.

I first carved a little lino print of four houses, what feels like forever ago. I loved the end result, except in my haste to get the idea from my head to my lino, the houses were wonky.

I tried a couple of times to fix it – I started by gently recarving their foundations, with rather limited success. With that done, they listed to the side, and the imaginary street they lined was also sloping, and not in a good way. This was the point it all got thrown to the side and ignored. A week or two ago, I pulled them out again, and sliced them apart, so I could re-align their bases. It showed me that the concept was worth pursuing, but the various tweaks over time made them…not quite right, and into the bin the went.

Yesterday, after writing an isolation to-do list, I picked the houses as my first project to work on. Partly to get it out of my head, partly because my at-the-coast craft panic buying included a set of block printing inks, where up until now I had been using letterpress ink, which wasn’t working brilliantly – with my Big Shot packed up in storage, it was hard to get enough pressure manually to get the sticky ink to transfer well.

The end result? I love it! I do need to work on getting my ink loading right, and I would love to make myself a baren to even out the pressure on the back, but I am definitely enjoying the process.

Today, I feel more grounded with my list to guide my and the kids in a good school break rhythm. We definitely work better when everyone knows what’s nexts and All The Things aren’t swirling around my head sending my crazy. Today I’ve managed to achieve all my daily to-do’s, and part of my chosen projects from the big list. I’m about to settle in to finish one as soon as I hit publish on this post, and the other I will work on tonight while watching a new netflix series I was recommended last night, or maybe even disconnect completely and go with an audiobook instead. I do still feel a bit unsettled and anxious, so my next task is to break my scrolling habit, turn off the news and the twitter debates, and refocus where I spend my time. Tomorrow, that time will be spent on school planning ready to head back into lessons next week. It has been a week and a half to get to Wednesday, hasn’t it? The upside is crafting is an excellent distraction, and I plan to be very distracted for the rest of the week.