A Quick Print.

I usually keep January as free as possible each year, as here in Australia it's full summer, usually very hot and most people head for the beach or other holiday spot. I look forward to January all year, as it's my 'art time' with no distractions and obligations that take up my time throughout the other 11 months of the year. Although it's not January yet, and I have lunch guests coming on Monday December 31st, I managed to grab an hour or so to try out a couple of ideas for this on going project. I tried it all out as a bleed print (no margins) but still using the archival stamp pads in a soft grey and black. I think that the grey weeds are still to busy and the black stamp ink just isn't nearly black nor solid enough.  Next I'll try with margins and good quality printing ink for the Leafy Sea Dragons. It has to be finished by January 10th, so time is marching on.

Resourceful.

Halfway through Christmas lunch, Little Miss 7 went off and quickly made herself this beard and mustache out of paper. It was very effective I thought !

Too Much for a Puppy!

This is a picture of a tired puppy. All the excitement of Christmas plus a very hot day just took its toll. After all, at just 3 months of age, it's a lot to cope with!

Lodgers.

It's amazing what will live in the air conditioning unit. A pair of marbled Geckos appear to have taken up residence in the split heating/cooling system. We managed to take one outside with no damage, but the other one dived back into the unit, never to be seen again.

Oldies but Goodies.

 I was very happy to have sold two pieces of artwork recently, this one above called The World Beneath, is a sunprint of grasses on fabric with added machine embroidery. The little beetle was a tiny applique cut from a print made from a stamp that I carved quite a long while ago.

This is called Beachcombers, and is of a pair of Curlew Sandpipers stamped onto printed fabric with stamped 'waves' and hand stitching. The recycled frame works very well I think, so I'm happy that it has now gone to a new home.

Christmas Cooking.

At Christmas time I really appreciate having kept my 54 year old Sunbeam Mixmaster, which is still going strong. I have bought a newer version, the flash red one, in case the old one finally breaks down, as I don't suppose anyone will repair it these days. It's big, heavy and solid and is a real workhorse at times like these. Here I'm using both mixers at the same time, one for cream and one for the egg whites, as I'm making plum pudding ice cream. It's usually too hot for a cooked pudding, although many people still make, or buy, them.  I used to make and serve a hot pudding some years ago myself, but not any more!

More Exprimentatal Printing.

       Here are another couple of versions of the Leafy Sea Dragon, neither of which please me!

I quite like the overall pale vegetation in the background, but the foreground seaweeds are too dark and cluttered. I tried printing one of the sea dragons in a sort of brown/grey, but I think that I prefer the contrast of the pure black. More experimentation to come !

Antipodean Christmas Colour.

 This is a lovely Brachychiton tree in the Royal Botanic gardens in Melbourne, its red flowers blooming in time for Christmas.

 These trees are often used as street trees, but are often torn apart by the Rainbow Lorrikeets, a particularly beautiful small parrot. The ground under the tree is then a carpet of red.

The trees then go on to develop these large seed pods, or at least the flowers that the Lorrikeets don't pull off do. Then the footpaths under the trees are covered with the seeds and pods for months, as they are very big and robust. Well worth the nuisance though, as the flowers are so spectacular at this time of the year.

Dragons & Weeds.

This is the first very rough mock up of my Leafy Sea-dragon and sea weed stamped piece. All the components are separate hand carved stamps, so they can be placed anywhere in any colour. This one is done in 3 shades, soft grey, darker grey and black. The top dragon needs to be rotated counter clock wise a little, and I might even stamp a piece of sea weed right across it's middle. I'm not altogether happy with that area, it's a bit bulgy, so I'd like to disguise that a bit, kind of like my middle really!

Gift Pots.

I needed 6 little containers for 6 friends, nothing fancy, nothing expensive but hand made. I came up with the idea of these little felt pots with their contrasting floral decoration, made from the left over bits of fabric from the pots themselves. Add a suitable button to the middle of the flowers and they don't look at all bad. Now to fill them with something nice.

Butterlies Galore !

 This is a print from the larger butterfly plates, now with added vein definition. I thought that the red paint on the hind wings would give more of a mauve shade, but it didn't and it's bit too pink for my liking.

 These are the new tiny printing plates, which fit onto postcard sized paper. I added the veins etc before I coated the plates with shellac and it's definitely easier, as I found that the tool slipped about on the shiny surface of the the larger plates.

A selection of postcards ready to be cut out, although I will make more and wipe off a little less as some of the prints are a little wishy washy.

Tiny Butterflies.

The larger butterflies printed reasonably well, although I have now added some more definition to the markings, but not yet printed them, so I don't know how that will effect the final outcome. I did however want a trio to fit on a postcard sized print, so here they are in comparison to the larger ones. They have all been shellacked, so they are a lovely amber colour, but it remains to be seen how the small ones print out. They were a bit difficult to cut out, since the cardboard had to be reasonably robust to stand a few times through the press.Now all I need is time for a printing session!

Seaweed Stamps.

 I'm starting to carve a collection of seaweed stamps, with five finished and at least one more to go. The large curved ones on the left are very distinctive, so it would be good to have a couple curving in the opposite direction.

                                                           My messy looking test sheet.

Return to the Stamp Carving.

With a dead line not that far away, I have returned to my Leafy Sea Dragons project, and just carved a second Dragon. I thought that I'd look through my old stamps for some vegetation that might double as sea weed. Unfortunately only 2 were suitable and a little too small for the size of the paper that must be used, 30 cm x 40 cm, so I'll use them in conjunction with some bigger new ones that I want to carve very soon..

Antennae.

The butterflies now all have antennae, and look much with them. I could actually have made them longer, but once the pen has left the paper there is no going back and adding more on. At least I didn't completely mess them up as I feared would happen!

Shaped Plates.

 I was pleasantly surprised to see how this collection of shaped collagraph plates printed out to day. The markings on the wings aren't really definite enough, but printing isolated shapes worked well.

 This above was the first one in mono-colour. Obviously the antennae will have to be added later by hand, which will be nerve wracking, as it will be easy to make a mess of that and ruin the whole piece.

                   Here I've introduced a second colour to the hind wings, which looks O.K. I think.

                                        The same green added to the fore wings this time.

Another two colour print, this time a little paler than the first one. No other colour combination appealed today, but who knows I might print in red and black perhaps!

Separate Elements.

I thought that I'd try something new, a collagraph consisting of separate elements all printed together. I've never done this before, so I chose something simple, my own carved butterfly stamp. As you'll notice, the wings aren't symmetrical, a quirk of a free hand drawn image. I've printed the butterflies onto cardboard, cut them out and painted the different areas with gloss or matt medium. Each should wipe off differently, should being the operative word! I wonder how they'll look, but being an experiment, it just doesn't matter, as I'll learn something in the process.

Multiple Collagraph Techniques.

 In this new plate I have used gel medium through a stencil for the wall, dried grass for the trees, pressed lichen for the foreground vegetation and sawdust for the lowest area. This one above shows the various elements, but is overall too dark.

                  This one is better I think, but the sky is too scratchy. Another try tomorrow!

Meet Luna.

                    We have a new Grand-Puppy, named Luna for the pale blaze on her chest.

She is a Groodle (Golden Retriever x Poodle), very fluffy and very self possessed for such a young puppy.  Happy times ahead for all the young ones in this household!

A Quintet of Little Angels.

 While in New Plymouth I visited the Te Henui cemetery, the most beautiful cemetery imaginable, with masses of flowers growing on the old tomb sites and trees full of blossom everywhere. I really liked these little angel statues, but of course they were on the tombs of children which is just so sad.

 This is perhaps one of the few with two complete arms, and she is more like a real child than the stylised children seen elsewhere.

                                                          This one has two missing arms.

                             I just love the way this one is holding out her skirt full of flowers.

                               This one has two arms and a delightfully simple little dress.

Colour Variations.

 With a few hours available for printing this afternoon, I decided to work with my old collagraph plate shown  inked above. It's just a test plate, using all sorts of bits and pieces that I've had waiting for a moment to try out. Although the contrast is necessary, I don't think that the random dark patches work all that well.

                                              This one above is a simple single colour print.

 This one has a copper colour rolled over the first colour before printing and an addition of a little blue above the green.

                                              This is similar, but with a yellow added.

 A much brighter yellow this time. It looks like something seen under a microscope I think.

                                          A similar, but different blue and yellow version.

More from Pukekura Park.

 One tiny corner of an amazing  complex of plant display houses in Pukekura Park, New Plymouth New Zealand.

                                                          A small pond with very fat fish!

                                                A view of part of the main lake in the park.

Old Wisteria Tree.

                     These pictures are of an old Wisteria Tree in Pukekura Park, New Zealand.

               I've never seen such a gnarly old truck nor such extensive limbs and flowers.

It's a pity that it isn't self supporting, so that the metal pipes and bars wouldn't be visible, but needs must of course with the weight of such an enormous spread of vegetation.

Yet Another New Project!

 This is a Leafy Sea Dragon, a gorgeous member of the Sea Horse family. Here I've drawn out the image onto a block of soft carving block.

It was quite intricate to carve, but has turned out reasonably well. The carved block on the right and the stamped print on the left. I have an idea for a complete design, but I will need to carve another couple of Dragons and some sea weed as well.