Mop Up Papers.

 When I'm printing with vegetation on a gelatine plate I use old dressmaking  tissue paper as a mop up cloth before I take a final print.

              These are some of the best of the mop up papers that resulted from yesterday's printing session.

 I'm wondering whether to collage pieces of them into a new work or whether to add more printing directly onto the tissue paper.

As I was working with quite a limited palette of colours they would all go together as a new collaged piece. Thinking.....................thinking.................

Paint.

 I was mixing paint to make background papers for gelatine printing when I realised just how gorgeous the paint on the glass plate looked with the lovely colours & textures.

 This could have course been shown horizontal, but the paint suggested reeds or some sort of vertical vegetation.

                                          Definitely water here, looks like a calm sea to me.

                                        Perhaps another watery one, maybe a river this time.

Here are some of the background papers sitting out drying.  I want to over print on these so they really need to be quite dry. Of course the images of the wet paint above could be printed onto fabric rather than paper.

Puzzle Piece.

 How annoying is it when you buy a 1000 piece jigsaw from the charity shop and there is a piece missing! This amazing puzzle shows the world from a very unusual perspective, with the north pole right in the middle. Can you see the one missing piece on the top at the right hand side?

 I'm trying to match the colour to make the replacement piece that has been cut for me. I need to allow for the paint to dry either lighter or darker depending on how the cardboard takes the paint, and the original pieces aren't a flat green, but stippled with brown and yellow.

                                       Done and you'd hardly notice the replacement piece.

Through the Window.

 I've never seen this particular Skipper butterfly before, it's quite large for the species and here it was sitting on the outside window sill. It wasn't bothered by me pointing a camera at it and I was surprised how well the photo through the glass turned out.

                               Similarly this Preying Mantis was not bothered by the camera.

       Just look at the spurs and hooks on the front legs.  I'm happy that I'm not a small insect!

A Painted Lady butterfly enjoying the Hardenbergia flowers. This species is always one of the first butterflies of the spring season.

It Must be Spring!

 It is now officially Spring here in the Southern Hemisphere, so these Iceland Poppies in the park were a welcome sight.

 Mauve-pink Primulas flanked by pink Brassicas, the white one must have sneaked past the gardeners.

                                              What a lovely display for the start of Spring.

Gelli Plate Printing.

 I've always used dried plant material to print on a gelatin plate up until now, but today I decided to try out some fresh flowers and leaves. As usual, I had a lot of trouble with the paint drying too quickly on the plate, but I did manage to get a few prints that might be useful. Here I've used a large daisy flower, some carrot tops and a piece of French Lavender

 I was surprised to see what good prints quite thick daisies made once I had cut away some of the stem.

 More daisies, a geranium leaf and some flowers and a sprig of the yellow flowering winter jasmine.

 This was the first print that I made, where the paint dried on the plate and then peeled off onto the paper when I made the print. Although it might be described as a failed and messy print, I rather like the distressed look.

                                                   More carrot top, lavender and daisy.

More daisy and winter jasmine. I'll have fun playing around with colours and filters in Photoshop!

Photoshop Play...Again.

 I want to make a lino cut of a nasturtium plant in flower, but to be able to print the flower in a different colour to the leaves, I need to make 2 printing plates. Here I've separated the flowers, the leaves and stems.

 I'm also playing about with sizes, too small and the carving will be tricky, too big and it won't be as useful for the end result.

                                 Here I'm just having fun trying out different flower colours.

New Cards.

 Having been a member of the Firestation Print Studio for a few years now, I thought that it was time that I joined in with the fund raising for the organisation by submitting a few of my designs for their annual card printing effort. The card above was called Japanese Dreams by a friend, as she thought that my hand carved flower stamp looked like a chrysanthemum.

I called this one 'Butterfly Blues' for obvious reasons. I used geranium leaf prints in each card and the butterfly is also a hand carved stamp. These cards and many others are beautifully printed and are for sale at the Firestation Print Studio for a very reasonable price, much cheaper than the commercially available mass produced cards.