Further work on the Clematis Designs.

I had a light bulb moment today! Rather than spend more time trying to make a stamp for the stamens of the clematis flower, it occured to me that I could do the reverse technique and make a linocut of the flower and stamens together, so much easier. I then realised that if I was going to try and cut the seed head as a stamp, then it would be well nigh impossible.  However a lino cut version of the seed head should work well. Unfortunately the weather is very hot today and the printing ink dried too quickly to make good prints, but it was worth a try.

After quite some time fiddling about with different things to make stamen stamps I have narrowed it down to one choice, toothpick ends. They are nicely tapered and thick enough to stamp out like the thick stamens of the native Clematis. As you can see from the picture, I tried all sorts of things and nothing was quite right. Either they were too thick, (foam sheet), too thin, (wire) or too textured (woven cord)Now to combine the elements into a nice Clematis stamp.

Having had reasonable success with the dandelion stamp cutting, I decided to tackle something a little more challenging, a native Clematis flower, leaf and seed head. The flower looked pretty straight forward, but it wasn't! First I carved out the 4 petals, easy peasy, but adding the stamens was much more difficult as they are so thin. Using the lovely new carving tools that I bought myself for Christmas I made the first stamp, not so good. I decided then that the image should be made in 2 parts, the petals and then the stamens. The petal carving was simple enough, but how to do the stamens?  Too thin to carve out, but maybe something stuck onto a block would do. I cut up lengths of fine florists wire, but that didn't work very well either. back to the drawing board.

While out walking early this morning I noticed all the shiny snail tracks on the footpath. It's been very wet here recently, so they must have all decided to go for a walk. The patterns are amazing, rather like stitching actually.

One Day's Worth of Beans from the Vegetable Garden.

The Fun Continues.

Her First Christmas.

The Tiny Christmas Tree.

A Batch of Rather Rustic Looking Mince Pies!

Another Wildflower, Austral Bugle.

Icing the Gingerbread Animals.

Hand Painted Version of Dandelion Print.

Cloth Bags I made for Christmas Presents.

Australian Wildflowers

A fairy ring of seedling Eucalypts.

The Mud is drying out..

Dressing Up.

All Elements Together!

I thought that once I printed the design onto fabric I should paint the various elements with pale fabric paint colours. Just for fun however I coloured the design in using Photoshop, all but the speckled grey leaves which were too hard to select individually that is. Now with the very strong colours it looks like an old style hand painted linocut. Which one would I prefer................?

Continuing the Dandelion Obsession!

What Happens to Old Train Carriages.

Something Here to Work With.

Gelatine Plate Printing and Stamping.

His First Ice-cream Cone.

Shortly after this he declared it too cold, too big and too chocolatey! Mummy had to finish it!

The Dandelion Obsession!

Back to the Dandelions.