Sunsets.

Not much art accomplished today, however I did manage to paint some pages this morning in sunset colours for a current project. The problem was that I sponged the paper with water first to allow the colours to blend in nicely, but the water and then the paint flowed over the edges of the paper and left the backs of the papers looking very mucky. Since they are for a particular project where I think that the backs matter, I was a little annoyed with myself for allowing it to happen. I need 6 clean copies, so I'll see how it goes.

This Time Last Year.

 This time last year I was playing with nasturtium leaves and various forms of printing and dyeing.
Early January is a good time for me to play with my art supplies, as I try to have as little on outside home as possible at this time. Often it is too hot to go out anyway, so I love this time of the year.

 Here I'm printing with rubber bands on a silk screen, sort of deconstructed screen printing on some previously dyed fabric, simulating the shapes of nasturtium leaves.

                                       Printing with actual nasturtium leaves on dyed fabric.

 Here I've used a text about the naming of nasturtiums as a background for more actual leaves and a thermofax (Print Gocco) screen that I made of my drawing of nasturtium flowers.  The screen of the text was also 'burnt' on a Print Gocco machine.

              Another version of deconstructed screen printing using rubber bands as a resist.

Owls.

Having used the owl stamp with open wings recently I thought that I might find a use for a stationary owl, so I set about carving one. It's a bit cartoonish with its big eyes, but it might yet find its way into some artwork.

Dragonflies.

I carved the largest dragonfly stamp some time ago, but I decided that I needed a range of sizes for a piece of work that I'm thinking about at the moment. Here are the 2 newest and smaller dragonflies that I carved today. The smallest one is only 5 cm from wing tip to wing tip, so it was a little bit of a challenge to carve. I might try an even smaller one tomorrow though.

Variations on a Theme.

 I wasn't at all happy with the moulding paste work from yesterday, so today I decided to combine the lino plate with stamps that I had made some time ago from Soft Cut.

 Although I was reasonably happy with the results, I can see that I will have to remove some more lino from around the central flowers, the gouges are a bit too obvious.

 I don't want to remove them entirely, as I think that they add some texture, but I need to tidy them up a bit.

             Here I have only applied the large lino cut to the lower two thirds of the gelatine plate.

 Some of these neutral coloured ones might be interesting inverted in Photoshop, or otherwise 'enhanced'.

 

                                                  I think that this one is the most successful.

                                      The stamps that I carved some time ago and used today.

Another Few Hours of Play.

                                           Definitely better without the solid bar at the top.

 I thought that it might be interesting to make a reverse plate from the lino cut. I used very thin wood which I sealed with 3 coats of varnish, then spread a thin layer of moulding paste onto the board when the varnish was completely dry.

  I think that I should have left the moulding paste to dry a little longer, as the result is very textured where the 2 plates were pulled apart.

 A great deal of the moulding paste ended up attached to the lino; I should definitely have left the paste to dry more. However, it couldn't have been too dry or I wouldn't get the result that I was looking for.

 The resulting textures are quite interesting, but the paste must have been lower in the middle as it is hard to get a print without a blank spot there.

These prints might make good backgrounds somewhere down the track, or I could just use the more interesting parts of them.

More Gelli Printing.

 It was worth going back and removing the top part of the lino, the print is so much better as a result.

In each case I've overprinted with the altered lino, but you can see the previous version underneath.
                        You can always see more detail by clicking on the image for a larger size.

Beating the Heat!

With the temperature sitting at almost 40°C it was imperative that we protected our summer vegetables from the scorching heat. All our veggie beds are raised and covered with wire cages, so it's relatively easy to cover them with the shade cloth that we have used for a few years now. It's a bit of an act the first time in the season, but after that we just roll them up and down as necessary. There are 8 beds all filled with growing food.....which as usual, the rats have now discovered. The cages keep out the possums and birds, but not the rats unfortunately and they have found the not-yet-ripe tomatoes.  Not content with just eating a couple of them, the rats take a bite out of each tomato which then begins to go mouldy at the bite site.  Read expletives here..........................!