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.

Hand Cut Stencils.

 I find that it's very rewarding to cut my own stencils, time consuming yes, but I'm much happier to work with stencils that I have made myself rather than using commercial stencils all the time.

This is a selection of 'twisted' leaf stencils that I cut recently. I actually started with cutting some very much bigger than these, but I quickly realised that they were far too big for the size of my home made gelatine printing plate.

This print above also uses another couple of stencils that I cut, but although I don't like the overall effect at this stage, the leaves turned out well.

This print was made over an earlier one that I wasn't happy with, it's better, but still not something that I'd keep at this stage.

This one above I was happy with and so I added my hand carved moth stamps to it. I'm really pleased with the 'twisted' leaf' stencils and will try to cut just one size smaller if I can for future use.