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.

The Joy of the Dance.

Sometimes one can live in a particular place for many decades and still be astonished by what is just around the corner.

I have lived in my current home for over 50 years, and yet I was astonished to be made aware of a small museum only 5 minutes drive away. https://www.duldig.org.au/

To reflect on the legacy of the sculpture of Karl Duldig, an exhibition was proposed for later this year, featuring the work of artists from the local Firestation Print Studio which I have been a member of for a few years. The exhibition is called 'Collection Reflection'. There was an evening back in October last year when print makers who were interested in the idea, visited the museum and chose a sculpture or artifact that 'spoke' to them with the idea of making an artwork of some kind to reflect this interest. I loved these 3 Dancing Figures, such joy and sense of movement!

I've been having a lot of fun working on my design and have now submitted it for the exhibition. I was given the dimensions of  quite a small plinth for display, so was somewhat limited by the allowed size. My triptych fits the plinth nicely however and I'm very happy with my 3 differently coloured articulated dancers on their patterned printed backgrounds.

                 After these photos were taken I did add the word 'dance' to each face of the artwork.

       

Cards.

I've been having lots of fun over the past few years trying out various forms of print making, from lino cuts to collagraphs, from gelatine plate prints to stamp carving and from collage to digital prints. All of this has resulted in a pile of prints, not all of which are worth framing or exhibiting. Some of the prints which appear to be failures, do however have parts of them that pass muster, and so I have been creating cards from these, not from the originals, but from photos of the originals, as I may yet add to the originals.

Below are a group of photos of prints that I made into cards recently. If you look closely you can see stitching on the middle one.

               Each print uses multiple techniques, so the 'cover all' description is 'mixed media'!

The blue print below was made using pieces of a common weed called Shepherds' Purse. The little heart shaped seed capsules are ideal for making an image on a gelatine plate.

Emerging Ferns.

While on a photographic assignment in the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, I spotted these lovely emerging fern fronds deep in the Fernery. It was pouring with rain, but under the tree canopy the ferns were still dry and showing their vibrant spring greens.
 

Tree Magic.

 While walking in the bush recently I came across this Eucalyptus tree with a rock embedded in the trunk. The question is, did someone originally put the rock there between the 2 trunks, or did the tree grow up around the rock?

              It's very firmly embedded now and I suppose that I'll never know how it got there.

Variations.

 After many trials and of course errors, I have at last come up with the final shape of my Harlequin figure. Then I needed to print some backgrounds for him to be displayed against and finally to print some more figures with possible variations in the colour of the clothing.

I managed to source some tiny black paper fasteners which work really well with this size figure and he can now be posed in many different positions of The Dance. Below are the many attempts to get a nice even print of the various body parts on different metallic backgrounds, none of which show up well in the photo!

Finally choosing the best of all the bits, I cut out the 3 figures that I needed, each one with a different colour. I then had to decide if the contrast with the background of each worked as I wanted.

   The figures haven't been pinned yet, the parts are just vaguely placed in the correct positions. Getting closer to the final stages now!

Continuing the Dance.

I've been spending quite a bit of time recently on making my dancing figures. I need to have them mounted on a coloured background, so while I have settled on a basic figure, I'm not sure about what is the best contrast between the figure and the background.

The figure below  is another version of the diamond pattern carved onto the rubber block. This pattern is much too regular, but I like the finer lines. The figure is too short and fat for this particular project, so I will carve another more slender figure very soon.

  

In the figure below I have carved out some of the individual diamonds and quickly coloured them in with inks to see if I like the concept...... I do.

 

 

These slender figures are more what I had in mind, and here I'm thinking of contrasting colours for the figure and the background. The background papers are all gelatine printed patterns, some from long ago like the pale blue paper and some from just this afternoon like the grey one above.

I don't like the grey at all, much too dull and cold, but it does provide a contrast with the orange figure.I think that the blue figure is much better, and although I like the yellow figure on the blue background, I don't think that the contrast is high enough.

Some Art at Last!

I am in the process of working on something quite different for me. First I want to create a figure that I can  make dance, a jointed body is just the beginning.

Here I have printed out all the pieces that I hand carved to enable me to print a dancing figure in various different poses.

Top right is the roughly drawn and ready to cut shapes, while the lower left shows the pieces trimmed and ready to print with. The diamond pattern on the lower right figure is based on a traditional harlequin costume, but for the purposes of this particular project, it is cut by hand resulting in a pretty rough pattern.