First Prints.

 With a couple of free hours this afternoon I did a speedy print from two of the new collagraph plates. This first one above is not very successful, mainly I think because there is too much difference in the height of the various bits of vegetation. The leaves are very flat, but the stems are quite thick, so the paint accumulates on the sides of the stems and the leaves are quite indistinct. I might try to pare down the stems and have another try.

This is much more successful, with some nice marks made by the flower heads and the pieces of stringy bark in the fore ground. I might try painting this one in water colours perhaps.

'Moth Mandala'

          This is my print called 'Moth Mandala' currently on exhibition at Il Bisonte in Florence Italy.
I carved 3 different sizes of the moths, although I ended up using only the 2 smaller ones. The hardest part was dividing the paper up mathematically! The artists were supplied with 7 sheets of  the printing paper (50 cm x 70 cm), but only 5 were required. Even allowing for 2 mistake copies, it was nerve wracking to say the least trying to get 5 copies as perfect as possible.

New Collagraph Plates.

 Now that these 3 plates are sealed with shellac and nice and dry, I can't wait to make prints from them. This one above is a collection of weed seed heads gathered from an unkempt nature strip outside a building site. I pressed them flat for a couple of weeks and then glued them in place on the mount board with some added coarse saw dust for texture at the lower front. They have had  several coats of shellac and the back of the board has also been sealed.

 This one has been partially finished for some months, with the background hills, saw dust vegetation and gauze in front of the hills. It never looked quite right, so now I've glued some tall weed flower heads and some fibrous bits of gum tree bark in the foreground. Again the weed flowers had been pressed flat for some months and the bark was very dry.

This is another old plate that I have added to as I didn't like the earlier version. I had a mental image of a water feature in the middle front area with rocks around it, but it didn't print very convincingly, so now I've added some small flower heads and some coarse saw dust. All I need now is time to have a printing session!

Much Better!

I took my courage in both hands and painted the last of my Pincushion Hakea prints. I could of course print more, but as usual I am anxious to move onto other projects. I don't think that I'll colour the background this time either.

A Spot of Water Colour.

Using the lightest print from my etchings, I attempted to colour the print with watercolour paint.
I didn't want the colour to be too strong, but this is perhaps a bit wishy washy. It's a bit hard to know just what to do with the scribbled background, perhaps I'll stamp over it with some random leaf shapes. Anyway this is just a trial, with the final print still waiting to be painted..........or not at a later stage.

New Drypoint Etching.

 The flower that was chosen by a member of my art group this month was the native plant, the Hakea.
There are many different varieties, but by far the most spectacular is this Pincushion Hakea.
I etched  the image into a piece of acetate and took a 3 prints, but a bit like Goldilocks, one was too dark, one was too light and I think that one is about right.

 This is the one that was too dark, especially the scribbled 'foliage' around the leaves, flower and stems.

 This  one is too light in parts, although the middle of the flower is about right. The leaves etc were all hand scribed, but I used an electric engraving tool for the flower and the marks are much deeper and therefore retain more ink.

This one will do, as I want to colour it with watercolours, so that the flower is the original bright pink against the green foliage. The photo of the actual plant that I used above is a not quite the right colour as it is too scarlet, but it does show the unique structure of the flower.

Autumn

 Like some carelessly tossed feather boa, this length of vine is hanging over a new fence. Did it grow there or was it indeed tossed over?

Wasp Saga.

     A female mud dauber wasp loading her mud chamber with a spider that the developing baby wasps will eat.

                One sealed chamber and one still waiting for a tasty morsel to be placed inside.

                                       Both chambers covered with a protective layer of mud.

The empty pupa case of the new wasp still in place with the other chamber completely empty.
For more pictures of the stages in the building and stocking of the mud daubers nest see Here

'Tieve Tara' Garden.

 This is a collection of 'hardware' from the lovely garden 'Tieve Tara' at Mt Macedon outside Melbourne. Originally settled in 1854, the garden has been extensively re-made and altered over the years, including battles with bushfires in the area. The house on the property was totally destroyed by bushfires in 1983, but rebuilt and currently owned by the Brand family since 1995.
Above is a charming sculpture on the edge of one of the lakes, a game of Leap Frog.

 With the trees and flowers on their own  a great attraction, there are also short walks from the garden down to a creek though a fern gully. This old water pump adds a feature to a shady fern corner.

                          These whimsical musical frogs add a note of fun to the lakeside.

 No, no France, but another part of 'Tieve Tara', a Monet style Japanese bridge over the largest lake. No water lilies in this part though.

           I don't think that I'd like to sit in this chair, it might be a rather damp experience!

Park Signs.

 Here are two more of the carved park signs that are in my neighbourhood. Fordham gardens has an extensive rose garden, so the white rose has been chosen for the feature carving on this sign.

 Bowen gardens has some wonderfully huge spreading Oak trees, so that the carved leaves and acorns are just perfect for this sign.

A Walk in the Local Neighbourhood.

 The local council has erected these lovely carved signs in various parks, each one with a panel reflecting the vegetation in the particular park. This one is I think of the Elm tree leaves from the Elms in the park.

 The tram depot, with only a few trams at home, and they are rather hard to see in the gloom of the shed.

                                                        Juxtaposition of new and old!

                                                    A rather skilful piece of street art.

       Usually a chaos of trams and cars, this 6 way intersection was very quiet this early morning.

Protea.

At last I have finished my Protea lino cut, with the addition of some stamped leaves and a little blue butterfly. The leaves were specially carved for this project as was the butterfly. The lino had a butterfly shaped space left in it, so that the blue wasn't just stamped over the red, which sounds easier to do than it is! I wonder what next month's challenge will be.

Smoke Haze.

 Melbourne is experiencing a very warm, windless and dry Autumn, which combined with the beginning of the burning off before winter season, is producing smoke haze throughout the day. Walking through the park this morning, I noticed the rays of the sun shining on to the ground through the smoky air.

I didn't have the camera looking directly into the sun, but the rays bounced off the branch and produced this rainbow flare, almost like a comet with a tail. Click the picture to enlarge and you can see the colours.