Stencils and Stamps.

I don't usually like to use commercial stencils, preferring to make the art all my own work. However I recently purchased some much more intricate stencils, ones that I could never cut out myself and combined them with my own hand cut stamps and masks. 'A Matter of Balance' above, is one such piece, with 4 commercial stencils plus stamps and the dancing central figure mask.

 The background in the above print was made from crumpled wax paper and I then stamped over my own carved stamps. It may not be completely finished, I'm not sure yet.

Tree Variations.

I've been having fun with my recently cut tree stencil, making all sorts of variations on the theme. Here I've over printed a gelatin plate print of gum tree leaves, then added bunches of leaves to the basic tree shape. The grasses are commercial stamps that I've had for decades, so it was good to find a use for them.

The basic tree again, and once more printed over an existing gelatin plate print that I had made with the yellow circle in the upper corner. The owl stamp was one I carved myself and the same grass stamps as I used in the previous image.The larger clumps of grass are made with a small piece of lino that I cut and used as a stamp.

Another in the same vein, only this time I collaged the moon onto it and used 3 different owl stamps that I have hand carved . More use of the commercial grass stamps and the lino-cut too.
 

Flying Fish!

The Flying Fish have landed, in an Alien Galaxy! This is a gelatine plate printed background with the stamped fish and a stencil water feature on the right hand side.

Fungus and Fish.

 This very 'pretty' flower shaped fungus popped up in the front garden recently. Something obviously likes to nibble on it judging by the bits missing.

The fish come next as I start on another project. I don't know why I suddenly thought of Flying Fish as I have never actually seen one in the wild, but here are my newly carved flying fish stamps in 3 sizes.

              I might even do one even smaller next, as it never hurts to have several sizes of anything! The different 'facial' expressions of the fish are interesting, with the larger 2 showing sadness and perhaps  bemusement and the smallest one showing a big grin.

Variations.

 I used my cut out tree image to make a screen for printing in Photoshop, adjusting the size and using the eraser function to remove a couple of bits that I didn't like. I then printed the screen over several of my previously printed background papers. Some of them I will add elements to, but others have such dramatic backgrounds that they need very little to finish them off.