Celebrating Two Years of Reduction Printmaking, and Smiling

So, exactly two years ago today I started my first reduction print, these hosta leaves. I know it was exactly two years ago today because it was my birthday and I woke up early on a Sunday morning while everyone else in the house slept in and decided I was going to give reduction printmaking a try. I remembered how unhappy I was with the results as I read this blog post where I refer to it as a "FAIL" and how I put all printmaking aside and waited four months before attempting another.

As I was reading all I could do was smile. It isn't a fail, and for a first attempt and considering the materials I used and the fact that I printed this with my hand and the bottom of a glass and had no idea what a baren was, it's not half bad. I think my expectations were just a little high at the time. I look at the details now and I can see the care that went into every cut and I can remember that initial excitement of what it was like to see what each successive layer would look like printed. Even though this was the print that I wanted to cut up into pieces once it was finished and the print that caused me to put printmaking on hold for months, it was also the print that made me fall in love with the process.

I woke up yesterday morning and I discovered that I had sold my first Hosta print, almost exactly two years to the day that I started it. The best part of selling one of these isn't that I sold one or that someone else liked it enough to buy one. The best part is that it made me take a good look at the print again, and at the past couple of years, and realize that something as simple as the joy I get from carving and inking some lines and and transferring them to paper makes me a lucky person.

Well that and the fact that it did help pay for my birthday dinner.