'Butterflies are Free'

At last I've managed to get this print into a final form that I am happy with! It took a lot of fiddling around, but I was determined not to waste the prints.

A Little Bit of Bushland.

 I took this photo at about 7.30 am today when the sun was just above the horizon casting long shadows of the trees on the 'grass'. The grass is dead and brown as are the ferns and many of the trees, large and small, are dying from lack of water.

 Our creek consists of just a few ponds well below the level of the banks, but the pond weeds appear to love the still shallow water.

          This little Flame Robin just wouldn't stay still and close enough for a good clear picture.

                   Sitting on a branch just beyond the gate was as close as he would get.

                                            Sitting good and still, but with his back to me!

Churchill Island Heritage Homestead.

                               What a wonderful way to display old billy cans and frying pans.

                                               Not much use for forking hay I don't think.

 One of the many reasons why I wouldn't want to go back in time and be a housewife who used these items.

                         A novel way of using old tractor seats and spade or shovel blades.

 The clever use of these old farm pieces has been made into a cascading waterfall when the pump on the left is used.

                       An old blacksmith's shop with it's wonderful array of old equipment.

A Heap of Hibiscus.

 These gorgeous yellow and red hibiscus are growing in a big concrete tub in my garden. The plant nearly died when growing in the actual garden, but has thrived in the pot, which is a bit strange unless the soil is warmer in the pot perhaps.

 These 2 pink hibiscus are growing in the garden of the heritage house on Churchill Island a couple of hours drive away from home. I'm not sure that I really like these twisted varieties however.

 I photographed the following magnificent hibiscus flowers in the city of Brisbane a couple of years ago.

I really don't like the colours of the flower above, but I suppose it is an interesting variation in a plant with an amazing range of colours and forms.

At Last!

Although this is just a mock up with everything still unattached, I believe I have had enough of this idea and will finish it looking like this. I might call it 'Butterflies are Free', a cliche I know, but it seems to fit. The only problem left however is how to give the butterfly on the outside antennae!

Variations.

 While I wasn't happy with the original prints from the collagraph plate, I'm determined to use all or parts of the prints in some sort of collage. I used to think that in order to exhibit prints, they had to be one piece of paper with one impression. However at a recent exhibition I was interested to see that several artists had actually used parts of various prints to make a whole image, and some of them I thought had worked very well.

 Using thin strips of black card, I have been playing around with the idea of a trellis or even prison bars! I think that I prefer the arrangement of the bars as above, which would be more of a trellis effect.

I think this sun printed background makes the whole image too busy perhaps, but it was worth a try.
I like the idea of one butterfly on the 'outside' and the others on the inside, but this isn't quite the way to go I don't think.

Sunset.

This doll is called Sunset, and was made by my seven year old granddaughter this morning. I found a pair of fairy/angel wings at the charity shop, so the aim was to make a suitable recipient of the wings. Since this photo was taken, the doll has acquired a pair of purple felt shoes! I suggested that the little craft person draw a body on paper first and then to learn how to pin the paper pattern onto calico and cut it out. A face was then then drawn a few times on paper to practice and then drawn onto the calico head.  I sewed the outline of the doll on the sewing machine and then she stuffed it with a little help on the thin arms & legs. She chose rainbow coloured yarn/ ribbon for the hair and the arms and legs were decorated with drawings. The dress fabric was chosen from a collection of synthetic materials, sewn up and fastened with 2 buttons at the back, which the wings could be attached to. Little Miss Seven was thrilled to bits with her special doll, especially since she did quite a bit of the making herself.

50 Years!

 This was the little house that we bought in 1969. Called a Californian Bungalow, it was built in 1925 and we bought it from the original owner and builder.

 This was the house in 1972, with the beginnings of a garden at the front and a council planted tree tied to a stake on the nature strip.

 This was the view across the street to another Cal Bung as they are called locally, tucked behind it's neat hedge.

            The hedge has gone and this is what is now being built across the road to loom over us.

This is the house today after we have lived in it for 50 years  The little tree tied to a stake is now a big mature Paper Bark tree, and the house is almost hidden behind the garden and trees.

No More!

 I'm heartily sick of this woman! Mainly because I can't get a decent print from the plate. These two are the best of the bunch, but they still aren't what I originally had in mind.

              I think I'll call her The Butterfly Girl, and leave it at that.  No more prints from this plate.

Here She is Again.

Here is my collagraph plate again after some modification. The original head ended very abruptly, as I had intended cutting the whole head out from the background, but as someone pointed out to me, it did look as if she had been decapitated! Now, she is wearing a T shirt or something. I've also gone in with an engraving tool to roughen up the areas that should be in shadow, to add a bit of a darker tone, and added the little cut out butterflies. Onward to the 2nd version tomorrow................I hope, and I also hope that it is a better image than the first version was!

Back to the Drawing Board!

 I'm not quite sure what I expected from the new collagraph plate, but perhaps not quite what I achieved. I'm not really concerned, as I wanted to cut the prints up for a bigger piece, but there are lessons to be learned here I think.

The butterfly looks like a large bow, a sort of Dolly Dingle look ! The eyes are pretty scary, and there isn't enough texture/shadow in the face & neck. Back to the drawing board I think

Sealed and Ready to Print.

The plate is now sealed with shellac and ready for printing. Unfortunately I can now see that the pupil of one eye isn't quite the same as the other one. I'm not sure what colour ink to use, as I don't want her to be realistic. Perhaps sepia or blue. I wonder how she will print out.

The Next Stage.

I'm still not at all sure that this will print up well, but I've moved on to the next stage anyway. The black areas have been textured, not with carborundum as is usually used, but ground cinnamon, as I didn't have any carborundum. I couldn't think of anything else that was fine enough to use! The mid tones have been painted with a medium containing fibres and I painted the lightest areas with gloss medium. The butterfly has also got gloss medium on all the white markings and the darker areas have been glued and had talc applied. This may not give the very dark that the butterfly stamp shows, but should give a medium tone. If not, I'll have to re-treat it later. Unfortunately my knife slipped while delineating one side of the nose, so she may end up with a 'messy' nose!

New Start.

I'm not at all sure how this collagraph plate will go, but it's started. I had a sheet of textured paper that I made many years ago and decided that it would make good hair for this female. It was a bonus that it was already orange, although it will be printed in what ever colour I decide to use. The butterfly is a rubber stamp that I have already carved, so it remains to be 'textured' on a separate piece of light weight card before gluing onto the hair. Then I have to decide how to deal with the face in order to differentiate the various tones. What fun!