Instrument Number 6.

 The last tiny stamp that I have carved in the musical instrument series is this hand held harp. Ideally the space between the frame and the wood should be carved out, but in such a tiny stamp I think it would be near impossible.

Since the hands playing are the important part in this series, I think that I'll just leave well enough alone.

Here are all 6 of the hands and instruments, I'm not sure why I have 2 trumpets however. Now to assemble them all plus the little guitarist

All the elements of the musical collage ready to work on. I have made the instruments into Photoshop brushes, so that I can work out various ideas for placement without having to stamp several copies of each image. My original lino cut of the little guitarist has been rendered into a line drawing for this exercise.

 

Toadstool Walk.

 A walk in the damp wintery, (well almost winter), bush produced a lot of wonderful toadstools to photograph. I have no idea what the names of all of these are, but I know that I wouldn't be game to eat any of them!

    This one is just emerging from the leaf litter and with it's frilly petticoat, it looks very alien.

   These tiny little ones look rather like bright yellow insects, or even leeches (hate them).

                    These pretty parasols were everywhere on the rotten and damp logs.

Another yellow one, but distinctly sinister looking with it's pool of water on top and orange ribbed gills underneath.

Autumn has Arrived.

 Even though the weather is quite warm for this time of the year, the trees are well into Autumn foliage. The colour of the one shown above is just stunning, and there is a whole row of them.

 The mix of colours is so lovely, from bright yellow through to burgundy red, made brighter no doubt by the contrast of the green grass below.

 Not quite in full Autumn colour yet, but again, the contrast between the green leaves and the pink-red is very appealing.

                                                       A lot more to fall here I expect.

A Bit Tricky!

 Here is the first stage of a trumpet stamp measuring just 6.5 cm like the other instrument stamps.

          I have no idea of how the pipe section of a trumpet curves around, so here goes!

Hmmm, not all that successful really. I still need to do some tidying up, but whether it's usable remains to be seen.

More Music.

 With such tiny stamps to carve I could fit 2 onto this square of rubber, a flute and a guitar neck.

                                        The 3 most recent stamps, all about the same size.

Now they are four. I still think that the pan pipe is the most successful, but the others will still be 'fit for purpose'. I would like to make a series of six, so I'm thinking perhaps trumpet and ??

Not quite so Successful.

 The next tiny stamp that I wanted to carve was of a mandolin. Here above are the preliminary carvings which were starting to look O.K, but then I cut between the 2 fingers on the fret board and removed too much!

I could probably disguise the mishap with some paint when I make a final print, but it's really annoying to say the least. The stamp is 6.5 cm (2.5 inches) long.

Stamp Carving Again.

 I thought that I might make a collage with my little guitar player, focusing on the hands used to play different instruments. These pan pipes might be too small at about 6 cm square, but I'll give it a go.

 The first rough print isn't too bad, now for some shading and definition, not to mention carving away the excess rubber.

The first print on the top still needs a bit of trimming but the second one will do. Seen here with the trimmed rubber stamp. Working on such a small scale is possible!

Out for a Walk.

                                            This 'junk' cow caught my eye today, what fun!

                  A beautiful thistle flower............I wonder if I can use it for my garden sample pieces.

                                     Spotted at the local park, seeds of a large flowering lily.

Energetic Potatoes.

 After harvesting a good lot of usable sized potatoes a month or so ago, I put all the tiny little ones into a plastic tub and..................forgot about them!

 Today I went to the cupboard to get something quite different and was almost attacked by the long tendrils of those little spuds. They are a variety called banana because of their elongated shape.

Luckily it was a nice autumn day, rather than the cold wet weather that we have ben having, so that I could plant these potatoes into a garden bed and trust that they'll start growing properly now that they aren't being neglected.

The Strength of Plants.

 Out for a walk this morning I spotted this small, but very strong plant pushing up through the bitumen of the footpath.

The Flower for May?

 Since it's only May 3rd. I haven't as yet visited any gardens, except my own, and this is one of the plants in bloom there right now. It's a fancy Hibiscus flower, it's huge and it really looks spectacular. Just right for another textile piece.

 However, it's early days yet and maybe I'll find something more interesting in another garden before the end of the month.

On second thoughts, it seems to fit in with the scale and colour of the other flowers that I've done so far. Maybe I'll give it until mid May to finally decide whether to use this flower or not.