Step Thirty-five ...

Can you see it? Down there on the water tower at the back end of the building ...

This was perhaps the most difficult impression on this entire print. To make a good gradation, you need a moistened block, then a good mix of pigment and paste on just one side of the brush. The pigment then blends into the water on the block and the gradation appears.

But to try and do that when the width of the gradation is only a few millimetres ... Of course a very small brush is needed, but even then, it is very difficult to get consistent results across the entire batch of prints.

Here is a closeup ...

Now, before we move on to the final step, there is a little story to tell ...

I like to listen to BBC Radio while I am working, and one of my favourite programs is a kind of 'spoof' quiz program. It isn't really a quiz, but just pokes fun at the genre. One of the popular segments involves asking one of the panel members to sing along with the recorded version of a popular song. After a few bars, the moderator drops the volume on the playback, and the panelist is left to 'sing-along' without any guide. The audience claps and jeers, and he struggles to keep in time with the inaudible recording, which is playing along silently. After quite a long time - about a minute or so - the moderator brings the volume back up, and we can see whether or not the singer has been able to keep time properly in his head. Sometimes the singer is off by a mile, but occasionally he is bang on - his voice matching perfectly with the playback - and he gets a huge round of applause from the audience.

So what's the connection with printmaking? Well, 35 steps back, I used the keyblock to take the first impression of this print. Over the subsequent two weeks the paper has been rubbed vigourously with the baren in this part and that in every different direction, has been dried out once and re-moistened, and has been subjected to incredible punishment as the pigment has been forced into every crevice of it - in many cases multiple times on the same area.

But all the way along, the 'singer' has been keeping time in his head, and now, with the final step approaching, the key block will be brought back for use one more time. Will the paper still fit in the correct position to allow part of the block to be reprinted?

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