Exhausted at the end of day 1

It has been so long since I spent an entire day focused on something like art making, I forgot just how exhausting it can be. The flamingo and lava lamp motif frequently showed up in my college printmaking and I could not resist the urge to bring them back. This is the first three stages, and the third may be the final, of this particular image. It is fun, and my birds can't help but appear sinister, though I don't recall ever being traumatized by Hitchcock's film. I took a photo of all three as I think it gives a nice overview of how things change during the carving of the block. I am hesitant of taking too much out in the beginning, so I always know the first is not likely to be my last, but with each additional removal I tend to focus on one area, then print to see how it works as a whole, before moving to the next. Of course this is probably slower, and I use a lot more paper and ink, but I like the variations, and changes. Someone mentioned in class that by doing this, I always have at least one image I may like, before I remove too much surface and ruin the piece. I guess tomorrow I find out if I end up doing that, though this process seems to be easy enough that I could do it at home, if I were careful, so theoretically if I don't do it in class, I have plenty of time to mess things up on my own.