Blue Mono Printing and the Midnight Garden

A bit of a printing fest going on this week, and it's all a bit blue!  I've continued with the mono printing from last week but changed the colours to suit my midnight garden theme - I seem to come round to that each summer as I really do love the muted colours and beautiful shapes of my garden as it goes from dusk into night.    

The bright sunshine we've been having has meant I can get some more cyanotype printing done - topping up my stash for card making and collages - always a favourite activity!

 

  I've also been running low on notecards so I have printed off another run of them using some of these photos of old and new cyanotype prints. I need to trim them all up - about 30 in total - a job I don't enjoy so we'll see if it gets done by next week - I'm betting it doesn't!!

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week.

Stamped Collage and Mono Printing

 A busy desk this week! 

A collage from the Collage Workbook challenges - this week incorporating stamping - I used some little seedling stamps that I hand carved a long time ago and gold leafed a few -I meant to gold leaf just one as a 'statement seedling' but I find it hard to stop leafing whenever I start so it reached 7 before I found my self-restraint!!

I also did some mono printing - here are a few that are still on my desk, out of what felt like hundreds I had printed!

And I received the last of the happy mail from the ATC swap - Jan very kindly sent me a replacement ATC as it looks like the original got lost in the post - I'm so thrilled to receive it and what a gorgeous card too - an absolute treasure, thank you so much Jan.

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week.

Playing About With Gelli Prints

I've been finding a little time to mess about in my Summer Night Garden sketchbook.  I came across some gelli prints that I had printed a while back but never got round to doing anything with. So I thermofax printed, cut, tore, glued and collaged!

I want to say a big thank you to everyone who left such kind wishes last week for my hubby's recovery from his hip replacement operation - I really appreciate your thoughtful comments.  He is doing incredibly well and is pretty much pain free now - I'm still amazed at how effective this has been - hats off to the NHS, they have done a fantastic job.

I'm linking up with Julia over at What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday this week - why not hop over and see what other people are up to.

Winter Garden Seed Heads

On my desk this week is a collection of seed heads and dried flowers taken from my garden - I've been using them as inspiration for the series of works I've been doing on the Winter Garden - you can see some of the work here.

I have also glued some gelli printed deli papers onto A5 handmade paper ready to collage and embroider. 

 I am linking up with What's On Your Work desk Wednesday so why not pop over and have a nose at what other people have on their desks this week!

Paper Artsy and gelli printing

The latest Paper Artsy Challenge is to use paint, and I was inspired by all the wonderful artists over there to get my paints out and play - so I decided to do some gelli printing on deli paper, following my theme of the winter garden.  I think these two pieces work quite well as a pair, although I didn't make them with that in mind.

 Once I had picked out the gelli prints that I thought were suitable for what I wanted I glued them onto sheets of A5 hand made paper and then they were ready to be embellished with collage material, beads and embroidery.

This is the paint through the holes in the stencil - I love how it's mottled and splodgy!

Sketchbook Work - Beyond the Enclosure

This week for What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday I've been doing a little bit of work in my sketch book - in fact more work on the boundaries and gardens project, using some old gelli prints I did specifically for it.   I also spilled a lovely new bottle of Adirondack Butterscotch ink over the studio table and the front of my sketch book.  Once the swearing had died down and the ink had dried I tried to squish the book closed and found I rather liked the look of the pages with the unintentional splodge - so that explains the bottom photo! 

Focus On Life - Capturing Colour

This week over at the Studio Sublime Sally asked us to "capture colour in all it's vivid brilliance".  This suited me just fine, as I have a pretty vibrant project going on at the moment - in my last blog post I showed the gelli printing I've been doing around the theme of coral.  I decided to photograph some of the bits and bobs I've been using to transform them from plain prints into pieces of art.

I am loving the colour scheme of red and lilac - it happened quite by accident, starting off as red and blue but with the paint mixing on the gelli plate and roller the blue turned into a lilac colour.  

 I fell in love with these beads a long time ago and have never known what to use them for, they've been waiting for the perfect project!  I'm very pleased they work so well with the prints - a small justification for buying things I really don't need but can't resist!

WOYWW #246 - Red Coral and Gelli Printing

After a long period of artistic inactivity I decided gelli printing might kick-start me again!      I do love coral and have used the theme in quite a lot of art work over the years.  I used some wonderful coral stencils from the Crafters Workshop that I've had for quite a while but not got round to doing anything with (familiar story?), but I am also in the middle of designing and cutting my own as I also want some slightly smaller, simpler coral shapes.  

Why not pop over to WOYWW to have a snoop at other people's desks - it's fun!  

Summer of Color week 2 and ICAD

For this week over at Summer of Color the colour scheme is hot pink and orange.  I decided to combine this challenge with the index-card-a-day challenge at Daisy Yellow.  

I ended up doing six cards based on a coral theme - I had to work hard at not making them red as that is the colour I had been using for my coral based work a few weeks ago.

I used gelli prints for the backgrounds and prepared a selection of cards ready to use each day with the backgrounds already glued on.  The gelli prints looked too dark against the buff background so I painted the cards cream.  I then spent about half an hour a day machine stitching, gluing and hand sewing them.

Some close-up shots

WOYWW and ICAD

For WOYWW this week my desk is covered in gelli prints I made for the new Summer of Colour 2013.  The colour theme for this week is Citron green and Turquoise.  I didn't know where to begin on this so I've printed some backgrounds and started playing - I thought that might be a good way to find a starting point - and I'll see where I end up!   

Also this week I have been taking part in the new Index Card a Day challenge (ICAD), over at Daisy Yellow.

My idea for the cards started with this gorgeous fern that I planted in the garden last summer while in the throws of the Summer of Colour 2012 - it helped feed my obsession with pollen and spores!

  

It has settled in to the garden beautifully and is looking very lush and quite spectacular - so of course it had to be photographed!  I used the 'design' of it to hand carve a stamp, which became the basis for the 7 index cards. 

WOYWW - Still Gelli Printing!

I have been continuing working on my gelli prints and have been developing the theme of gardens and enclosures.  I have always had an interest in the history of gardens and I love the idea of them changing from practical enclosures for planting food and keeping animals into areas for pleasure and relaxation. 

The stencil/mask is taken from an image of a Sumerian pictogram on a clay tablet dating from 3000BC.  It's an extremely early representation of a garden with a tree planted in the middle of a triangular enclosure.   

'Beyond the Enclosure'

If any one else is interested in this subject I have found some wonderful information and inspiration from two particular books - Penelope Hobhouse's 'Gardening Through the Ages' and 'The Invention of the Western Garden' by Vercelloni and Vercelloni.

I am linking up with WOYWW - why not nip over and see what's on other people's work desks this Wednesday!

WOYWW and Gelli Printing

At last, after a long period of inactivity I finally have something happening on my work desk, so I decided to join in with WOYWW - why not pop over and see what other people have been up to!

I got my gelli plate out, did some printing, and had a fun afternoon messing about with paint!  I chose a colour scheme loosely based on the two little wooden hearts in the photo - Paynes grey and Neutral grey, Naples Yellow, Burnt Sienna and Portrait Pink - I 'm quite pleased at how they work together.   

The sketchbook page is made up of the leftover bits of prints - I think they show the colour palette quite well.

Some close-up shots of what I have been doing with the gelli prints in my sketchbook.

An almost finished page - it needs something else but not sure what!

WOYWW - STENCIL CUTTER AND EASTER CARDS

For What's on Your Work Desk Wednesday this week I have to show off my new 'toy' - a stencil burner - it's brilliant and cuts stencils in a far more accurate way than the Stanley knife did.  In order to get a quick 'play' with it I cut out a simple outline of a chicken and decided to make some gelli prints.

For the printing I chose to use the colour scheme from the Witch Hazel colour palette I made for 'Colour Me Weekly' a couple of weeks ago.  I found that the printing worked quite well despite mixing Dulux emulsion (and anything else I had) with the acrylic paints, and my gelli plate remained unharmed!

I turned a couple of the prints into Easter cards and added some stitching in the golden yellow colours to highlight the 'combs'. 

It wasn't until I photographed the cards that I noticed how tatty my table is - I don't notice it in real life!  The stains are where my water pot for paint usually stands - perhaps I'll try and do something about it - or perhaps not!!!