Sand Dollar Print: Back at It

Sometimes the two separate halves of my life, the creative one and the non-creative working one, flow together nicely and there's balance.  And then again sometimes they don't and I feel like I'm living in two worlds that are miles apart. The last couple of weeks were an example of the "sometimes not" scenario as, between a weekend out of town, a three-day course for work, and all the other regular stuff that sucks up time, the days whizzed by with no room for printmaking.  

It sure is tough to pick up a block left untouched for a couple of weeks and begin carving it again, just as if there were no interruption.  It always seems to take so much more thinking just to figure out what the next step will be.

I'm still not wholly on top of things and it was almost looking like I might not get to print even today but, somehow, I managed to catch up and added the fourth colour after all. With that, the sand dollar part of the print is done. I teetered and tottered between leaving the print be after the last time and going forward as per original idea.  The temptation to call it done definitely was there, made all that much stronger when I realized I wasn't the only one liking the subtlety after colour three.  But, in the end... 

   

At this point, the top and bottom areas of the print are much stronger than I want them to end up and will need to be lightened.  I considered masking them off for today's printing but finally chose not to go that route; I specifically want the lighter colours to go over this darker one.