There’s nothing like a day getting messy to soothe my soul. I have cut new leaf stencils and masks, cut a Heartagram stencil, inked and layered and glued and… I am really enjoying this larger format landscape journal. The pages stand up well to the way I work and I like having more room to ‘do stuff’. I just wish my wrist was stronger, but it’s getting there.
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,300 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 11 years to get that many views. In 2012, there were 57 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 559 posts. There were 129 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 190 MB. That’s about 2 pictures per week. The busiest day of the year was June 10th with 177 views. The most popular post that day was New home office / art room.
These are the posts that got the most views in 2012.
Visitors came from 98 countries in all! Most visitors came from The United States, New Zealand and the United Kingdom were not far behind.
When Mum passed away recently a friend gave us some flowers which included poppies and seed heads – awesome! I have been fascinated with poppies since we visited Italy in 2010 and use them a lot in my artwork. Having the real thing on display in the kitchen inspired my to take a bunch of photos, do some drawings, and finally cut some stencils. Huge thanks to Michelle Ward for lessons learnt while doing the Crusades – without your lessons I doubt I would have managed it. I have now got stencils for two flowers, and two different heads plus the masks for all but the big poppy. I couldn’t work out the bridges to keep it in one piece but may have another shot at it yet.
I have had a quick play with them on newsprint and am happy, so tomorrow I’ll start playing in earnest. Earlier in the year I was given some lovely old, never used and in mint condition, prints of John Abbott’s The insects of Georgia produced by the Alexander Turnbull Library. I am going to be participating in Legato 2013 and have a vague plan in mind involving the prints, transfers of photos of Dad from the war, and the poppy stencils. We’ll see…
(the images are wrinkly because I am too impatient to wait for the ink to dry before scanning)
I have been playing with Gelli Plate prints again, using a combination of ready-made stencils and masks I have cut from heavy laminating pouches. Some may get used as they are, others I’ll work back into then cut up and use in my art journals. It’s late spring here and already I am finding the Golden Fluid acrylics are drying quite quickly, I think I might need to start using a little medium to slow down the drying time.
I’ve been experimenting with stencils and spray inks lately. I find the process quite messy, probably because I forget to put gloves on in my excitement to get started, but I love the results. The inks I’ve been using aren’t waterproof so I have to be careful about using water media in the top layers, but other than that, they’re very versatile. I’ve also starting making my own sprays by using Golden Fluid acrylics and water in a fine Derwent spray bottle. It means I can make my own colours and the result is waterproof so I can use water media in the upper layers. Incidentally, I got the spray bottle to go with a set of Derwent Inktense Blocks, and I love them.
I can see all kinds of possibilities with layering images using the stencils. I lent them to some ladies at the library the other day, and they had a great time decorating garden pots using them. We gave the terracotta pots two quick coats of gesso, then a base layer of whatever acrylic colour they fancied and let them loose with the stencils.
In the meantime my friend Martha Marshall has started experimenting with Gelli Plates. Martha makes fabulous prints anyways; she’s a fearless artist who never hesitates to experiment. I’m fortunate to own a few works by Martha and love them all. Anyway, watching the work she is producing with the Gelli Plates makes me want to try incorporating some print making with using stencils. In the past I have done lino cutting and mono prints, so once I have done the next newspaper and sent it to the printers, it might be time to get out the lino cutting tools…
Cath Sheard Art 