Garden Lobster colour set

Common rough woodlouse in bright colours. I think I'm influenced by their Garden Lobsters nickname, so I'm going for cooked lobster pink. You'd certainly notice them in the garden more often if they were this colour. All this with view to making a large composition with a background. Prefer the left and right.

Out of all the ones I've done lately, and I've done a lot, I prefer the misaligned ones. They really mess with the eyes in an interesting way.

Printing updates & Armadillidiidae

The dock weeds growing in the soil I 'liberated' from the housing estates are growing a crazy red dock spot pattern.

They are probably much weakened by being grown in pots and can't fight it off. But it does look pretty and I noticed it just in time to get it into the print. However, as you can see on this test print, the screen print stencil didn't work as hoped. I'm going to rework this as a lino-cut block print and use the opportunity to add more detail.

While I think about this another printing project has taken over my walls - so currently, they are covered with woodlice! Not real ones, and looking a bit like pineapples here.

Because I spent all that time making a lino-cut stamp to make the wild-clay ceramic woodlouse effigies for my degree my thought is that I may as well try them on paper, retrofitted with two more lino-cut block printed layers to add colour. No photos here but they look great in bright graduated colours. Next time I will plan the layers ahead as doing them later was really tricky, hence I don't have photos of the fancy coloured ones. 

No details now but I'm thinking about ways to make a bigger, part layered woodlouse block print.

A growing project: salvaged silver-houses soil

July 2019. I sit here considering what to do about the weeds and splurging into tissues the remainder of a cold that kept me down all weekend.

The weeds are growing in soil that I 'liberated' from ground destined to complete a shiny new residential estate. A poetic reminder of its last wild moment when it was beautiful. Enthusiastically stealing from the developers a wealth of confetti in white-flowered Shepard's Purse and Thistle.

So far I have grown mainly baby Dock Weeds and a very long and searching Field Speedwell. A flat, round and fluttery leaved buttercup that didn't like growing in a pot also upped and then died.

I want to make a print to celebrate them. So I'm drawing on tracing paper to overlap them and see what shapes there are.

3 July.
Slowly cutting out a complicated stensil. This will be the top layer in a strong opaque colour. But it has to be done first so I know where all the other shapes need to go.

I'm still clearing out and amalgamating all the studio things I had to bring back from college into my house. This quite a large task! Nevertheless, I've managed to squeeze a space for making and drying prints into my bedroom. It's nicer to work on the table downstairs with a view of the garden but at least I don't have to tidy stuff away so often.

I'm planning on using a range of printing techniques and I will end up with a range of prints on paper that probably have a few differences. Lino relief printing I'm used to, screen printing not so much. I haven't tried to combine them before, so we will have to see how it goes.

I have a some Permaset Premium ink on order and I'm interested to see how that works on plastic. It's water-based but will print on unpermeable surfaces so I'm hopeful it will be more successful than anything else I've tried recently.