Three Times Through the First Block — A Block Printmaker's Process

While working on his largest block print to date, Nevada artist Craig Mitchell returns to the first block again and again — a reflection on failure, instinct, and why the best work often begins by starting over. Like behind-the-process posts like these? Check out Why I Don't Repeat My Last Print — A Block Printmaker's Process.

I’m currently working on the largest print I’ve ever attempted — nine separate blocks printed sequentially to build a single image. It may also be the largest piece I’ll ever be able to print on my current press.

Today I went back to the beginning.

I carved block number one for the third time.

The first version looked right — until I compared it to the others. Once the remaining blocks were carved, the problems were obvious. So I corrected them and cut it again.

The second attempt still wasn’t right.

So I started over.

This time I slowed down. More attention to the drawing. More patience in the cutting. I think I finally have it. But I won’t know until it prints.

That’s the reality of my process. Returning to the beginning is common. You keep working until the parts hold together.

The Voice That Decides the Work

In the studio there is always one voice that rises above all the others. It’s persistent and impossible to ignore. It tells me what I actually need to be working on.

The moment in my career I learned to follow that voice, the work changed.
It became honest. It became necessary.

I don’t want to exist as an artist just to be adequate. An artist has to aim for greatness — not out of ego, but out of responsibility to the work itself.

I doubt my work will ever be considered great. But if I don’t try to make it great, it almost certainly won’t even be good.

The Dangerous Voice of Safety

There’s another voice too — a practical one.

Make what sells. Repeat what worked. Stay consistent. Meet expectations.

In art, that voice is the kiss of death.

My best work only happens when I surrender to instinct. The moment I force an idea to behave — to match older work, fit a theme, or stay comfortable — it’s compromised before it even begins.

Instead I follow the idea and let it reveal itself.

Eventually something shifts. I begin to lose control, and that’s the pivotal point. The piece pushes back. It demands different light, different scale, a format I didn’t anticipate. Sometimes the physical limits fail the idea. Sometimes the idea expands beyond what I imagined possible.

Good ideas don’t want comfort. They want time and space.

Living Inside the Making

Making art isn’t producing objects. It’s living inside the act of making.

Failure is constant there. Most of what I make never leaves the studio — and that’s exactly how it should be.

Failure means risk. Risk means movement. Movement means I’m not repeating yesterday’s solutions.

Each failed attempt moves the work closer to the version that finally holds together — like carving the first block three times before it’s ready.

What the Viewer Never Sees

When a finished piece leaves the studio, the struggle behind it disappears.

No one sees the discarded versions, the restarts, the doubt, or the hours. They only see the resolved surface.

And that’s enough. It has to be enough.

When a single person stops and says the work matters to them — when they want to live with something I made — that’s everything.

I don’t need everyone to love all of it. No artist ever gets that.

I only need to know the work made a small difference somewhere.