Double Sun Prints.

 The sun print above turned out to be unfortunate pink and purple colours, perhaps due to the age of the solutions. I may go ahead and paint over it to get rid of those colours, as it should have been orange not pink!

 I spent a couple of hours this afternoon over printing some of my previous sun prints, and I'm very happy with a lot of the results. This one above using pressed Grevillia leaves is my favourite from the session I think.

 I like parts of this one, but not as a whole piece. It seems to show seaweed under water ripples in some areas.

Because I'm mixing all sorts of colours to use them up before they are useless due to be so old, I'm getting a lot of mud colours. This one however picks the blue up nicely, providing a good contrast to the shades of brown.

Further Sunprint Play.

 I have been scouring the neighbourhood recently for branches of fine leaves that are hanging over fences and therefore O.K to pick. This one on the right is exactly what I was looking for.
On the left is a print using partly skeletonised leaves that I picked up in the bush and I think that a technique using these leaves is worth further investigation.

 

Here is another one using similar leaves, but it also includes the commercially available skeleton leaves.  I think that I prefer the random light coming through in the prints of the leaves that I found myself.

Another print using 2 different sizes of fine leaves, both of which make nice strong prints.

 Here is a random selection of dried and pressed grasses. The finer ones have printed very well, but the thicker more solid heads lack definition.

Above is another negative made from a photo of grass heads against the sky. Interesting image, but at the moment I'm not quite sure where I would use it.

Something Completely Different!

 No, not an intentional work of art, but a corner of the white sheet that I have had on my work table for the last few years to mop up all the drips and splodges of spilled paint and ink.

    To my mind it looks even better when the colours are inverted in Photoshop. Now it almost looks like a  work of art..................maybe.

Leaves & Moths.

Here is the finished Leaves and Moths sun print with added stamped images. I didn't like the single large moth so I have added 2 of the smaller versions, and also used a gold ink pen to colour the patterns on the wings. Anyone who has been following me for a while would perhaps recognise the moth stamps as the ones that I used in my large Moth Mandala work a few months ago. That's the good thing about individual stamps as opposed to a large collagraph or lino cut, they can be used over and over again in different contexts.

Adding to the Sunprints.

 I've rolled some orange paint along the backs of the 3 vine tendrils and pressed them onto the negative spaces on the leaves of the sun print. That blank space in the upper middle called for something extra, but I'm not sure if I like the angle of the carved Softcut moth stamp. It might have been better to turn it a little more to the right, but it's too late now as I was working on an original sun print.

Using the Photoshop Invert command, the colour inversion is quite interesting, with the orange marks of the ink on the pressed leaves becoming speckled with green like the green of the originally orange moth.

Sun Prints Part 2.

 With every day adding to the age of my hoarded sun printing inks, I grabbed the first available sunny day without wind to print off some more images, this time with pressed foliage rather than negatives. Melbourne is generally known for it's windy Spring, but this Autumn has been very windy too.

 Although I put a sheet of window glass over the items to be printed, I still don't want leaves or dust to be blown over the image. If you can look closely you can see where some of the leaves have tiny insect  holes nibbled in them and the light has made speckles on the blocked out areas.

 Here I tried some commercial skeletonised leaves with mixed success. They need to be very closely in contact with the paper to make a good print and the rest of them on this sheet of paper were indistinct due to them not being completely flattened by the glass. I really like this corner however.

 I have been pressing tendrils of various vines that I pick on my morning walk with the view to using them pressed, but they seem to make better contact with the paper when they are still soft and not quite dried out.

In the sun, the glass developed condensation on the underside and reacted with the ink in the corners of the paper, but it's quite interesting the way it's only in the corners.

Printing Session.

 I decided to mount the inner parts of the Bottlebrush flower onto a piece of acrylic to make the placement easier. I also made a 'forme' on the plate for the little printing press so that it would all line up accurately.

 I wasn't sure whether to print the red/pink colour first, or whether the back would be strong enough to print the colour on top of it. I was trying out various types of paper too, the cream ones here are a thick cotton printing paper and the white ones are multi media paper. I hadn't realised that the cream pieces were a little shorter than the white ones, so I got the placement of the first couple of prints wrong unfortunately.

 The main lino cut is also mounted on acrylic and fitted into the same 'forme' as the coloured sections.

 Here is the first of the series of combined prints, some of which are O.K and some of which aren't so good. I had trouble with the paper sliding slightly as it went through the press which gave me some blurry lines.

 In the end, I decided that the stamp ink over the lino print gave the best result, as it was less dense than the 'proper' printing ink and I preferred that look.

Here's the lino without the colour, which shows the difference between a stamp pad inked image that I made yesterday and one today using the correct printing ink.

Adding Colour.

 I've set myself a bit of a challenge, to add colour to the Bottlebrush flower before I print the leaves. It's easy to add the colour after the main branch, but to add it before requires  very good registration, which I haven't mastered as yet. Here above are the 3 splashes of colour in the correct orientation, carved in "SoftCut' and mounted on cardboard.

I stamped the red colour first and then tried to line up the lino exactly over the red. Not so easy I discovered. Here it's too far to the right, but how to line it up correctly I'm not quite sure. I'm still proofing with stamp ink, hence the patchy image. Until I get it all sorted, there is no point in setting up with printing ink and a press.