Wildflower printing

Taking pleasure in the simple things,

I have been printing  from nature using wild plants.

The prints from my printing press have turned out beautifully!

I used spritzing ink in a lovely shade of aubergine to spray the blooms and grasses.

I love the way some of the plants natural colour combined with the ink to make beautiful green shades.

This year has been a good year for wildflowers.

I also used my Gelli plate and acrylic paint in a neutral shade to print with grasses,

 When printed they look like Mediterranean  Cyprus trees standing, soldier-like in rows!

I have trying to find out more about Eco-dying fabric now I am discovering what wonderful prints can be made using plants. I think that may be my next stop on my journey......

See you soon! J

Winter's on the way.

'November Beech Trees'

I have been living in the summer over the past couple of months, working on summer inspired pieces using photographs I took during the warmer months as my inspiration. This week  however I thought I would take a more seasonal approach and use some Gelli printed mulberry paper I made while the fallen leaves were still dry and crisp.

Autumn leaves

                             
 I collected  Autumn leaves and used acrylic paint to print them onto the paper with my Gelli plate.  I then used the paper to make an abstract woodland.
 The trees were splatter painted with an old toothbrush after I blocked off the surrounding areas with masking tape. The copper red reminds me of the shiny glistening bark of the Beech tree. It seems to stand out so prominently when there is not much colour around, The background of collaged bookpaper text was going to be covered more heavily in gesso, but I like the way the text contrasts with the bark so I left it. I often feel I overwork things and my new challenge is to know when to leave things alone!

Gelli printed mulberry paper

Collage obsession have a Haiku Theme this week so here is my woodland abstract with a little 5/7/5 Haiku.

Still,quiet,sharp frost.
Sweet smell of Autumn Decay
winter's on her way.

Time to light the fire and wrap up warm!

linking to Collage Obsession  and Paint party Friday.

Mary and the Thistle

Mary and the thistle

The summer of colour challenged us this week to combine Lime green and purple.
This is Mary, she has had a little digital colour change, she started off as a Gelli plate page.

Can you spot her outline on the page?
Sometimes a little face peeps out just waiting to be found.
She looked like a 'Mary '
So Mary she is.
I used bronze and purple colours on my Gelli plate page.

I painted her outline in in Gesso.

Added her features, she has a wild hairstyle!

Added a little more colour and the bright spiky thistles.

And her is Mary in her true colours, still lots of lime green and purple, but with a splash of scarlet and burnt sienna thrown in.

Linking to The Summer of color
and Paint party Friday
Also just in time for Mary to join Junes Gelli plate party

Teapots and Teacups

There is most definitely something about drinking tea out of bone china cups, it tastes nicer, much nicer. Perhaps as I have just had a mini holiday, or perhaps because of the weather I am very much in love with the idea of afternoon tea. As a child I lived far away from my Grandma, so visiting her was a treat and the part I remember most about the visits was four o'clock afternoon tea. These days afternoon tea seems to be all about salmon sandwiches and luxury hotels but back then it was a bit more basic.

Sliced white bread, homemade jams, scones and homemade cake. The tea was served from china cups and from a teapot with a built in tea strainer ( very posh! ) and here it is, grandmas tea set...

Grandmothers tea set. On heavy watercolour board

As you can see I used Neocolor crayons, I love how quickly you can get an intense textured background. I also used the same method for this piece.
                                    

Another favourite teapot of mine, Art Deco 1930s

                   
And to finish a little teacup, missing its saucer , painted and collaged on a Jelli plate background of hearts which I stencilled.

Collage/ acrylics on jelli plate paper

I rather like this vintage version.

Or this Pop Art version! very 1960s

 Links this week to the The Artists playroom  and it's teacup based theme. It is to promote Tracey Fletcher Kings cuppa with friends project, which sounds wonderful!!!

and also Paint party friday
and Inspiration Avenue and their retro theme this week

Fishing for Dreams continued...

On the easel this week.

Dream fishing

 A few weeks ago I posted a piece called Fishing for Dreams. It was for an art challenge at collage obsession and the theme was emerald. I used Gelli printed paper and acrylic paints.

fishing-for-dreams

 I really liked the idea of  working the idea further and using pastel dream like colours and textures. I also wanted to give my sleeping maiden more detail and make her hair link in to the spiral.
I usually spend a lot of time cutting hair strands from paper as I did in this previous Klimt style piece.

Klimt style woman posted in March

So this time I cut gold and flame orange handmade paper coils to form her ringlets.

Hair detail

And modelling paste impressions made with the nets that come from pre packed oranges in the supermarket.

Modelling paste detail

I am using modelling paste quite a lot these days, it gives such interesting textural results!

 When I played around with the image making it darker and removing the colour it revealed the darker side of dreams, this is an altogether different world! Perhaps this will be an idea for next weeks project. :)

Linked to the wonderful Paint party Friday

Also linked up to Artists in Blogland

Starry night over Gairloch

looking for inspiration

 There are many Artists whom I love and have influenced me over the years. My little' Starry Night over Gairloch' collage is a little bit of fun in celebration of Van Goghs famous painting.

Starry Night, Van Gogh

 Van Gogh was a master of colour, I just love the swirling sky!

My collage used citrasolve paper for the sea and gelli printed paper for the sky. I use Golden Gel medium to stick the citrasolve paper down as it creates less wrinkles than pva glue types.

I have so many favourite paintings this weeks Artists Playroom challenge to choose one seemed a bit tough!
I visited Aberdeen over last weeks long holiday weekend and spent Sunday afternoon in the city Art gallery, I LOve Art Galleries! They are such peaceful contemplative spaces. Aberdeen although the third largest city in Scotland is not particularly large and the gallery is not full of Van Goghs, but it does have some interesting works.

Aberdeen Art Gallery

 The beautiful weekend weather meant Union Terrace gardens finally looked quite springlike!

Union Terrace gardens

 My trip to the gallery reminded me that much of my inspiration comes from less famous artists; the gallery has a beautiful watercolour by contemporary Scottish artist Elizabeth Blackadder. I have admired her deceptively simple still life watercolours since I was a student in Edinburgh ( many years ago :)! )

Elizabeth Blackadder Flowers on an Indian cloth

                                                           
So I did a little watercolour still life tribute to her fantastic work.

Still life with Goss china and little shoes

Spring roses and ferns

Spring roses

 I seem to be in a flower painting mode at the moment, although I have moved on from the tulips. Outside my front door I have a climbing rose and after a long six month winter it is finally beginning to show some signs of life. So these are not as yet roses from my garden, think I will have to wait a while for those. I used acrylics, gesso, water soluble wax crayons, conte crayons and my fern printed paper for the leaves.

Gelli plate

 I had a couple of questions after my tulip post on how I made the fern paper, well this is how!
With my Gelli plate; I collected the leaves placed them on the plate and used them as a stencil. They produce beautiful paper. If you haven't seen the Gelli plate before I have done a couple of previous posts on it. Have a look at Gelli printing for ideas.

The leaves produce paper like this..........

Which I tear up and use in my collages.

 It gives the collage a very textured look

 and means by using my own paper it feels more personal

 So... spring leaves and fresh roses.....

This weeks link is to the APR challenge: click to see what lovely things others have created  Here
Also links to Paint Party Friday

Return to the tulips

What I have been up to this week.

Tulips( take two)

Last week I struggled and wrestled with The artists playroom challenge of choosing a colour combination. I realised after I had finished that perhaps I had been too hard on tulips, perhaps it was me that had the problem, about yellow and tulips! They sat there looking at me on the dining room table every time I went to the kitchen, they are such long lasting flowers!
Right! I give in in! I will try again.....

Last weeks tulip study

So a different approach this time, collage.... collage made me work quickly and intuitively, no time for complaining or worrying about tone and form.

A background of encyclopedia pages and beautiful mulberry handmade paper with bits of grass embedded in it.

I added some Gelli printed paper to make the leaves. The finished picture shows some paper I made using ferns. I was really pleased with the way the fern prints were absorbed into the tulip leaf shape making a lovely lively texture.

Inktense tulips

I enjoyed the whole tulip experience I even had time to do a colour exercise with my new inktense pencils! They arrived in the post this week, I am in LOve! They are fabulous, the colours are so vibrant, never tried them before, no idea why but now they are a definite must.

So Tulips? Perhaps still not a favourite flower, but certainly not one to be feared :)

Links to Paint party friday