Printing.

 These photos are of the prints that I made from the various collagraph plates that I made using different medium textures. The one above is using the crackling medium plate, which should make an interesting background for further printing. As it is, it looks like an underwater or rain forest scene.

 The medium applied through a stencil worked well, leaving a blank space to the right for further printed elements.

             This is an enlargement of part of the crackle medium plate, printed with 2 colours.

                                                 A two colour version of the stencil plate.
                    I did about 14 prints in all, but I'm not sure how many I would call successful!

His 'n Hers.

 On the left is my hand made sour dough rye bread and on the right is his machine made whole grain loaf. What a contrast in size and weight, but they both taste wonderful.

The sour dough rye bread is very dense and flavoursome, but we only eat a couple of slices between us a day, sometimes none at all, so I always cut the loaf in two and freeze one half.  The whole grain loaf is much small and lighter, so he makes that every few days for his sandwiches. There's nothing like the satisfaction of making art....................and making bread!

Background Textures.

 I've just constructed 4 cardboard background texture plates for a new collagraph project that I'd like to try. Each plate has texture using a different medium and each has an area with less texture than the edges, as that is where I plant to add images, either stamps or much smaller collagraph plates. All the plates have been sealed with shellac on the back and the front for ease of cleaning.

 This above is a close up of the top left plate, which is made using a texture gel containing blended fibres by Liquitex. There were lots of sharp pointy bits after this had dried, so I have sanded quite a lot of the plate.

              This is the top right plate made by spreading moulding paste through a stencil.

 This is moulding paste again shown in the lower left plate, but with a rubber stamp of foliage pressed into it before it dried. The impression is vaguely of foliage, but it's also of bubbles and other impressions made by lifting the stamp off the wet plate.

 This one, which is the lower right is made with crackling paste. I covered the plate in a very thin coating at first, but the texture was a bit too subtle. However I left that area in the middle  and added a heavier coat around the edges of the plate. The plate crackled nicely when it dried for the second time, although it did warp a bit, but nothing that a night under a heavy book press won't cure!

Another area of the crackle plate, which looks like an aerial view of a city to me, with lakes or open spaces dotted about.

Rush of Blood!

I had a rush of blood to the head yesterday and finished my Beetle for July! Once again I have used my hand dyed cotton as the background and a hand carved stamp for the beetle. I used some leftover leaves from the previous fabric piece and touched up parts of the beetle with some metallic turquoise paint.This piece is a little different to all the other beetles that I've done this year, as it's applique because the background colour is so dark that I couldn't make a stamped image show up enough on it. In the picture above, the colour appears a lot lighter than it really is.

Anthology.

 This lovely little newly released book is a collected anthology of poetry written by members of the Dan Poets group who meet weekly at the Dan O'Connell hotel in Melbourne. There are some 60 poems published in the book, some of which are illustrated by members of the Firestation Print Studio, also in Melbourne. In 2018 members of the Print Studio were given the opportunity to choose a poem that appealed to them and to submit their illustrations to be included in the book. The cover of the book is a lino cut by Jan Liesfield and the first poem in the book is called ' 37 ° - Thunderstorms Predicted' by Laura Brinson, which was the poem that I chose to illustrate.

     This above is the actual page in the book, the very first poem and illustration on Page 2 !

This above is a picture of the image that I made with my hand carved stamps before I rubbed out the frame guidelines and and submitted it for publication.  I am thrilled to be associated with this collaboration between poets and artists. 

June Beetle.

This is my beetle for the month of June.  The colour that the group chose for either the beetle or the background was of course green. Once again I used my carved rubber stamps for the beetle and for the foliage on my hand dyed fabric, with just a simple outlining machine stitch around the stamps. I painted the beetle even though it was stamped with colour as the stamp ink didn't show up very well. It was sufficient for the leaves however. The colour for next month is indigo.

Finished.

After another morning's work, I think that this piece is finished. Now called 'Fallen Fragments' reflecting the broken leaves on the forest floor, it has come together quite well, although there are some things that I'd like to change, the right hand bunch of gum-nuts for one. It's a bit too dark in comparison to the other two, but I think that I can live with it.

Moving Right Along.

With another grey, wet and dismal day in Melbourne, it was an ideal opportunity for some more stitching. I've added more leaves along the lower edge of the panel, horizontal lines in the top half and I've started to stitch on the bunches of gum-nuts at the top.

New Aspect.

Since I started on this piece I had always worked it in a vertical aspect. The frame and mount that I was re-using was originally in a horizontal format, with the weight at the lower end of the mount and the hanging wire across the frame. Suddenly I thought that with the addition of the latest elements,  it would work better in a horizontal aspect. Always good to keep one's options open! Still a bit of work to do, (you might be able to see a couple of pinned leaves) but it is starting to come together.

Adding a bit of Water Colour.

 I chose what I considered to be the 2 best prints from the recent collagraph plate printing session and added a bit of extra colour with watercolour paint. I don't like the dark orange on the left hand feathers, so I will declare that the lower print is the 'final' one in this series.

Collagraph Printing.

This is the first print  from the most recent collagraph plate. The ink hasn't penetrated into all the nooks and crannies yet, but it's a reasonable first effort.

 This is the second print with a green background instead of blue and a brighter yellow on the flowers. The ink is still patchy on the thickest feathers and the ink on the pots is a bit indefinite.

             This was supposed to have red flowers, but they turned out pink for some reason!

This is the one that I think has the most potential and I'm happier with the more orange highlights and the  blue-green of the background. I bit of water colour paint might be in order to improve this print.
It takes such a long while to ink each colourway, that it took over 3 hours to do these 4 versions.

Lots of Stitching.

 Today was a public holiday in honour of the Queen's Birthday, so with the weather being pretty dismal, it was a good excuse to spend a lot of the day stitching.

I spent a lot of time stitching the small stamped leaves on the right hand side.Then it was time to sew random lines of 2 shades of grey and of cream reflecting the previously dyed colours of the fabric. Then I stitched similar rows over the area where I planned to put the pale leaves.  They were then stitched into place with all the edges and veins sewn in a creamy yellow.

This is a detail of the various layers of fabric and stitch. There are some areas that I'm not quite so happy with, but I think that I can add some more elements to disguise those places!

Collagraph...Again.

I really don't like to have too many projects on the go at once, but as I can only use the big printing press at the studio rather infrequently, I have the current collagraph plate on the way as well as the stitching project. This photo shows the newest plate after a couple of coats of shellac. This is for an exhibition later in the year for prints reflecting the work of a print artist that we admire or has influenced one's current practice.  I really admire the work of Angie Lewin, her lino cuts and screen prints are really beautiful, and this plate above, goes a very small way to referencing her work. Angie uses feathers, utensils and vegetation in a lot of her prints, so I've included emu feathers, my carved pot and flower stamps with various bits of pressed leaves and flowers. I've booked the big press for Wednesday morning, when I'll be interested to see how this plate prints. I think that I'll spend most of my 4 hour booked time time inking up and wiping off, paying particular attention to the edges of the cut out flower stamps.

More Leaves.

 Here I've decided not to leave the large Gel plate print as a rectangle, but to cut around some of the leaf shapes for a less regimented look.

I've stitched around all but one of the leaves, extending the leaf shape out beyond the end of the actual leaf prints. So far so good!

From the Stash.

 This is a piece of 'eco-dyed' cotton that has been in the stash for a while, and it looks very promising to use with the Gel plate leaves. I've stitched around most of the leaves down the middle of the piece of cotton, adding veins which didn't show up in the dyeing process.

                     Here I'm fiddling around with one of the best of the Gel plate pieces.

I've cut out the individual leaves from the palest of the leaf prints and I think that they'll fit in quite well over the dyed and stitched leaves. I'm not sure about using the whole of the dark piece, so I'll fiddle around with other placements for a few days.

Gel Plate Leaf Prints.

 For another project that I have just started, I needed some leaf prints on fabric, so I pulled out the trusty old Gel Plate and got to work with acrylic paints mixed with fabric medium to keep the fabric still reasonably soft for subsequent stitching. I had a collection of pressed and very worn eucalyptus leaves which I used many times over on each plate.

 This is actually a digital copy of one piece of fabric that I reversed in Photoshop. I'm not sure about the colour though as it's not the right green.

            This one is a better more subdued green, and is again an inversion of another print.

               I really like this one and will almost certainly use all or some of it in the final piece.

  I might cut out some of the leaves from this piece of fabric, but the background colour isn't right.

Drypoint Etching.

Yet another technique in my printing arsenal! This is a sheet of soft acetate that I have carved into with an electric 'Dremel' machine. The plate was then covered with ink and wiped back to reveal the ink in just the carved grooves. This is an intaglio process as opposed to a relief process like lino cutting. A bit of work still needed here, but unfortunately I forgot to reverse the image for carving, so that the house and trees are the wrong way round in the actual print. I have reversed it in Photoshop for the purposes of the Blog, but will have to redo the carving another day, probably in lino next time.