Butterflies Galore!

 I've loved butterflies my entire life and can never get enough of them into my art. Using a gelatine plate and hand cut collage here are 3 recent butterfly pictures.

"Exploding' Books

 I recently attended a wonderful workshop to learn how to make an exploding book. This is only one name for this technique, but it's a good one given how the book works. We were told that all the items for the book would be supplied with the exception of the prints to be used, so I just bundled up a pile of old prints in 2 different colourways, orange and green and hoped that I would have enough suitable prints to make the little book. I did and below is the result, first the front cover with the pages folded and then the book opened out.

After making the book in class I decided to use up parts of old eco printed paper to make another book, to see if I could make it without the excellent guidance of the tutor. I only made 2 small mistakes and what's more I used up a lot of those old prints.

Lots of Bottles.

 I seem to have a theme going at the moment on my Gel plate, bottles. I'm not sure what inspired this theme, but I'm having fun making various prints using the bottle masks that I made.

In this one above I added pieces of vegetation sort of inserted into the necks of the bottles, but I'm not sure if that works or not. More play needed I think!

This one above actually has 10 green bottles, quite by accident and not design, so of course it is called '10 Green Bottles'.

Angry Bird!

This fine fellow, or Lady-Bird, was most unhappy that I appeared in the doorway to take his/her photo. Screeching loudly he/she told me in no uncertain terms to go away!!

 

More Experiments

Using just weeds and plants in my garden, I created the above print with the tops of carrots from the vegetable garden, the leaves of thistles and the yellow flowers of the Oxalis plant. The final touches were made with tiny daisy flowers from the nature strips, more weeds. I usually press and dry vegetation before printing with it, but this time I used fresh foliage and flowers. The Oxalis flowers are very fragile, so I could only print with them once before the flowers fell off, but that was enough. The daisies too started to fall apart after 1 or 2 dabs onto the paper.

Here I went back to an earlier print of the light on water and added several different prints from fresh blades of grass. I then made a small screen of a drawing of a pier and printed that. I called this 'Lake's Edge'.
 

Experiments.

In the picture above I was experimenting with a more painterly approach to using the gelatine plate. Applying multiple thin layers, I think that I achieved the look I was hoping for.

Another experiment, this time laying down a base colour of grey and then covering that layer with masks and printing another colour over the top. I cut the rocks out of a sticky film and then printed the green layer over the top. The vegetation prints were then applied over it everything.

Here I printed part of a perforated plastic place mat, with hand carved stamps. All in all I was very happy with my various experiments.
 

Mixed Media.

Usually I start a gelatine print from scratch, but with piles of prints that haven't quite made the grade, I'm having a bit of fun layering more colours and shapes over old prints.

This one was made by twisting 'art combs' into the already painted plate and then hand colouring parts of it. Too busy to add anything more I think!

This one has been sitting around for ages, originally mauve and grey with shapes of bits and pieces that I picked up in the street, I over printed it in a transparent orange and I'm much happier with it now. I may still add more, but so far so good.

New Stencils.

I really don't like to use commercial stencils, so whenever I can, I cut my own from lightweight card.

These 2 above are the latest efforts hot of the craft knife! I can't wait to try them out on the Gelatine plate!
 

A Different Direction.

 With a deadline looming for artworks that feature the human form, I made a small thermofax screen featuring a female image. I printed the screen onto already existing gelatine plate prints and added a few extra marks in the case of the darker work.

It's always pleasing to find just the right background for added printmaking, especially if the prints have been put aside for quite some time, as in the case of these two. Above is 'Can't See the Wood for the Trees' and below is 'The Writing on the Wall'

 

More Water Patterns.

                         Yet more of my efforts to reproduce the patterns of light through water.

                                 This one above suggests shallow water over a sand bank I think.

                  All the prints were made on my home made gelatine plate and hand cut stencils.
 

Light on the Water.

I've been experimenting recently with the idea of light reflected through water, perhaps looking down from a pier into the water. I cut a stencil from card and tried it out, shown in the image above. It's O.K but not really what I was looking for. It does however have potential.

The picture above show me trying to get the rays of light shining through the water, but these are too thick and regular.

This one was just a bit of fun with the strange colour scheme, but again with the idea of rays of light.

Another colour scheme just for the fun of it! I think that I need to work on the beams of light, obvious but more subtle in size and shape.
 

Some Success.

 After 3 batches of eco-dyeing, I wouldn't say that they were all an unqualified success! There are some good pages, but even the ones that aren't so good are useful. I have printed some pressed weed images on the pages that don't have very distinct leaf or flower images, as shown below, following the pictures of the most successful eco-dyeing pages.

Eco Dyeing on Paper.

 Some of the vegetation prints that I have seen using the 'Eco Dyeing' technique are just beautiful, but most of mine in the past have been a bit disappointing. I was determined to have another try, so went around the garden collecting flowers and leaves, cutting paper and organising supplies for the trial. The size of the paper is always limited by the size of the pot that they have to go into, so after a couple of bundles boiled in an old aluminium pot, I found that I had an old baking dish that was conveniently already rusted in places.

I had 2 pieces of reasonably heavy perspex to use as covers for the bundle, so I thought that the boiling would not be a problem. I was wrong, they warped considerably, so that was a waste. I will have to find something else to use from now on, if I continue with the process of course.

You can see the warping in the photo above. The big reveal will be after I have left the bundle over night.

A Morning in the Botanic Gardens, the Birds on the Lake.

                                               Beautiful Black Swan amongst the vegetation.

         A Female Native Wood Duck. These ducks also roost in trees which looks quite odd!

                                         The female Wood Duck with her 3 male companions.
 

                                                     Also a juvenile Dusky Moorhen.

More Stencil Cutting.

       

 I really like the idea of arches to work with on the gelatine plate, so this is the next arch themed stencil.

 I used an old print with stamped random alphabet letters on the base layer, with another stamped layer of small print and various household items over that, with the stencil as the last layer. I feel that it still needs some sort of focal point, but not being sure exactly what, I'll leave it for now.