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!