flowers and ground

polyester lithography plates based on my relief prints

A busy week in Artlandia!

Work continues on the pseudo-tapestry.  This week's mission was working on the foliage and elements for the ground.  Having printed the mushrooms and foliage blocks, this week I scanned the prints, worked with the files, and turned them into polyester lithography plates - lots of polyester lithography plates.

Turning the relief prints into polyester prints gives me the chance to create variants from single objects (which is how these organic things occur in nature - a mushroom doesn't usually appear alone, but with other mushrooms that are related but all slightly different). I used digital software to manipulate and distort the images from the relief prints so each thing turns into many related things.







I marbled paper (which is another step in insuring that each thing will be unique and adds an element of random variation). I was using a new type of marbling paint - it has nice density for the white and metallics (which is what I was looking for), but is much stiffer in the water - will continue practicing and "getting to know" it.

 I printed the flower, mushroom, and snail plates.

I cut out the flowers and sewed them to the foliage. For the ones in the back, I misted black paint over them so that they have less contrast and will recede a little.  I'm stoked for the next step - adding snails and bugs.

part of the block for the ground

So...now that the foliage is well on it's way...there's an issue.  I'm re-thinking the ground. The ground now is a mix of collagraph and monotype, and it's "ok," but those are both additive techniques, and I think it really needs to be made with a mostly subtractive technique to mesh well with the rest of the piece.  I've been working on a 2 x 4 foot wood block for the ground. I brushed the wood with a wire brush to pull out the grain and then built the patterns of grass around the naturally-occurring pattern of the wood grain. It is sloooooow going, and I'm still trying to figure out some things about how to transition between horizontal bands of ground. 

close-up of proof of section of the 4 ft ground block.  

Last, but not least - I delivered the framed pieces to Tremaine Gallery for the upcoming exhibition :).