Friends
To continue onto the process of mine I'd like to tell you about how I'm carving and printing the cards up.

3. CARVING
After the tracing is put onto the block via permanent marker it's time to carve it out. When I carve I try to think about the line I'm trying to create and also the way that I can make the block endure time the longest. What goods a block print if you can only use it a couple hundred times before deteriorating, right? What's been working for me is instead of a harsh line carved right up next to my mark I try to create a bevel or plateau to the assumed printed summit. This way I won't be compounding on a cube but a triangle which should hold up longer...

This is too much isn't it?

Okay I take about three to five hours to carve a block. This is much faster than my first day of carving; I did the back of the cards, which took me 12 hours! (18 with drawing time...and all in one sitting to boot!) I'm only giving myself ONE SHOT to carve each block and all mistakes HAVE to be left in (example: on the back of the cards the last thing I carved on it was my name...BACKWARDS!!...argh! You don't know how frustrating to see that printed hundreds of times! But this life is it is what it is, mistakes and all we can do is move on and attempt to correct them in the future.) Also remember rule #2 nothing automated can touch the blocks. (This one SCREWED me this week, when I ran into a problem getting registration (lined up front to back) while printing and could of easily solved it by cutting the blocks to fit the sheet better I even called up my good friend Lucas and left a message asking him to cut them on his table saw for me‚ but by the time he called back I remembered rule #2. ‚again, argh! It could be fixed so easily‚but my backwards logic is the card need to be the closest reflection of me completely and convenient gadgets and computers can only save time they cannot show you my heart...just the same, it is still frustrating!)
‚anyways, I could get real descriptive about how carving them but it's not all that exciting to read (not even to me) and honestly I'm not sure if I'm doing it right anyways‚it's not like I took an art, or carving class or anything‚I'm just giving you the best that this bucket between my ears can do.
‚but printing well that's a different story...

4. PRINTING

I've been printing for going on 11 years now and I've done a little bit of everything

(sorry about this it just popped into my head but, I remember as a kid making 25-30 cards with a drawing of the same 3 hammerhead sharks in pencil on typing paper for my birthday party. I remember going to school and not giving them out and later throwing them away because I was afraid my classmates wouldn't appreciate them...huh...wow! I totally forgot about that! )

...ANYWAYS‚...as I was saying, I've been printing for 11 years now. And I pride myself on my craft. So when this project begin to evolve I tried to set it up as best I could to run smoothly on the printing side of it. I tried to open up my images as much as possible to accommodate this step. Okay, here are my steps:
first off I print all of the backs on the full back of the 9x5 sheet and let dry for a day
Next because of the variance there location on the paper (even with my jig in place.)I hand cut each card down to the size it needs to be. ( about 6/34 x 4")
Then I set-up individual jigs and print the fronts. Wait a day.
Apply color ( I will have hand painted versions but on the most part colored pencil does the trick.) and wood stain. Wait a day.
Clear coat wait until dry and then flatten and smooth (I use a Chap Stick lid on my finger‚ although I might need to revise that...) and then shape for strength (adding a nice length-wise curve to them so they don't flop around.)
The smell of the wood stain passes in about a week...and BAM! See it's just that easy!!
Add an impossible deadline, a job and more drama then any one man can bear in a lifetime (Whine, whine, whine...) and you can be just like me in no time flat!

No really, I'm doing all of THIS (my time effort and a price that even I could afford) so you can get a little piece of my heart to have, hold and share with others. I really try hard to make my art, my thanks. Thank you all.
...alright it's back pushing this bitch of a boulder up this hill... again. I hope to see you at the top!
Your Sisyphus,
Abe