Kaleidoscope Plate 1.

 In this photo I have traced the kaleidoscope image onto the cardboard circle, cut our the darkest shapes and painted various textures onto the other shapes.

Now the plate has been painted with shellac and will be ready for a test print when it has dried sufficiently.

Kaleidoscopes.

 After the moderate success of some of the collagraph plates that I made recently based on the art work of Ernst Haeckel, I played around with some of the original designs using a kaleidoscope function on the computer. Although they look fairly complex, I think that if I use the right textural media I could make some interesting plates from some of these.

 The top right in this photo is of the original Haeckel design and the 3 others are kaleidoscope variations.

   I rather like the top left one of these 3, but I wonder if I could turn it into a printing plate!

More Haeckel Plates.

 None of these versions of another Haeckel inspired collagraph plate really worked out well. I think the fault is in the plate itself or perhaps the ink.Maybe the plate just doesn't have enough variation in the textures.

 This one has the light and dark greens reversed compared to the one above it. I was  using a different ink to the one I used in the previous printing session, which may have something to do with the blotchiness of this trial.

This too is very blotchy, and as the ink was a lot more liquid than the brand that I used in the earlier prints, despite trying to thicken it up with a little talcum powder, it may explain the less than ideal coverage of the plate.

Spring in the Garden.

 Although it's very cold and windy there are signs of Spring in the garden......thank goodness. It's been a very wet and cold Winter and I for one would like some warmer weather.

 Probably the earliest flowers to come out, apart from some daisies, are the various varieties of Prunus. This bud is on a nectarine tree.

                                  A Calendula flower almost fully open in a rare spot of sunshine.

New Collagraph Plate Printing.

 I managed to find a couple of hours this morning to print a few variations of the new Haeckel inspired collagraph plates. This was the first one in a monochrome blue. Usually the first print isn't as successful as subsequent ones, but I think that this came out pretty well,

 This is with black ink all over and a rub of blue in the middle, but I'm not sure that I like this combination of colours.

      This was supposed to be blue and orange, but for some reason the orange turned out pink!

This is the blue again, but with a yellow rub in the middle and a roll over of yellow around the sides. I like this colour combination a lot, and will probably do more variations like it.

Shot in the Foot?

This Prickly Pear cactus is growing in a neighbour's front garden. The 'toes' are the flowers and developing fruits, which are edible and can also be made into jam, although I've never done that myself. Walking past, all I saw was a many toed foot, with the damaged sole.

New Plates.

                        These are two new collagraph plates based on the work of Ernst Haeckel.
The one on the right has many different textures, but it remains to be seen if I can bring them all out in the prints. Unfortunately it will probably be some little while before I can have a printing session, but I hope that it won't be too long. It's all very well making these plates, but until a print is made, you just don't know if its worth the effort involved.

Collage Play.

 It's inevitable that after a printing session there will be prints that fail to meet expectations. Some are just too bad to be used whole, so that cutting into rejects is often the way to go. The background print from a few months ago, shown above, has a lot going for parts of it, but as a whole it isn't very interesting. The circles are cut from more recent collagraph plates prints and suggest moons to me. Layered over the slightly darker background prints, the title Blue Moons springs to mind. The cut outs aren't glued down yet, but what the heck, I will glue them down.

In the meantime, I've been trying out inversions and tweaking in Photoshop. The outcome is not so moody, but might be worth playing around with a little more some time.

Ahead of Myself.

This is the beetle for September with the group's choice of colour..... pink ! At least the beetle shows up on this colour, unlike on the indigo and black that were chosen previously. The chocolate colour for November might also be a challenge.

Collagraph Printing.

 Here are two of the newly constructed collagraph plates based on the Haeckel  images. The top one is of an algae and the lower one is of a marine creature.

 The greenish prints look more like the original animal, but the lower one in orange looks like, well an orange! A mistake to use that colour I think, although oranges don't really have the large central part shown here.

Using more than one colour starts to get tricky with a plate, as it's very easy just to blend the two colours together and get mud. I quite like this mixture of blue and orange. 

 The one below here shows the added texture more clearly I think and I like the contrast of colour between the outer areas and the inner part.

Another slightly different green print, which I think shows the inner texture more clearly. I obviously didn't press in the similar texture enough on the outer rim however, as it's barely visible..

The Yarra River.

 Just visible alongside the city buildings is the Yarra River, very close to where it meets Port Phillip Bay and then flows out to the sea.

Here is the same river, just metres across, not that far from where it rises. This is adjacent to the Redwood Forest that I posted photos of yesterday. It really is a beautiful area with the sound of  rushing water, the tall tree ferns and the mosses and lichen on the fallen logs. It was pretty muddy underfoot, but well worth the walk to see this spot.

Redwood Forest.

 While away for a few days at Warburton with a group of friends, we discovered this amazing Redwood forest off on a side road which doesn't even have a sign to the forest on it, only about 7 Km from the town.  We had the forest to ourselves, but judging by the size of the car park, it must be very popular at other times of the week/year.

          Apparently these are only baby trees, but they are very impressive all the same.

We were intrigued by these 'nests', so a quick Google search came up with the explanation.....

Over 80 years ago, a revegetation program was born in the area. The introduced species Sequoia Sempervirens (the fancy name) were planted in Warburton as part of an experiment. Believe it or not but these Redwoods are only infants, the tallest stands at a modest 55m. Natives on the Californian coast can grow up to 115m!

From the first few steps, the Warburton Redwood Forest carries an overwhelming feeling of eeriness. Feel the chill as the Redwood canopy casts its shadow and listen as the subtle ambience turns to silence. Large creepy “bird’s nests” are scattered throughout the forest, remnants of art by David Digapony who weaves portal like sculptures from fallen branches.

Outside the Bedroom Window.

                               A few visitors outside the window hoping for  some food.

Very cute to see these two grooming each other, but they are very destructive to the houses in the area and so feeding them is forbidden.

Ernst Haeckel

Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) a biologist and philosopher,  was an early exponent of Darwinism. He published a series of renderings illustrating all sorts of organic and inorganic  subjects, from prehistoric times to the present. I have chosen 6 of his circular images to attempt to translate into collagraph plates. I will of course have to simplify most of them and may not get as far a making all six, but it's quite an appealing project, given that I now have 10 professionally cut 15 cm cardboard circles.

Possum Damage!

 This is what happens if you have tasty lemons on the tree as well as possums living in the garden.

Note the fruit on the right that has been completely stripped of skin and rind, just the flesh left there hanging on the tree.