flora in triptych 2

Flora in Triptych 2 is now finally listed.

I printed this small edition of etchings in April before I went to NY and love the deep richness of those dirty reds. It's a tiny edition of 5 only as with all the messing around involved in inking up and laying three 10x10cm plates exactly on the printing bed, not to mention getting a good print (which means me not bumping that paper before I run it through the press) I would need to be printing for an aeon to have any more. I have a few others from this run that are quite quirky (plates positioned differently) and may list those separately at some point.

What have you been printing?

etching class with Bridget Farmer

some of the work I made at Bridget's studio

Fruiting Habit

The lovely Daylesford sky

After spending 2 days in Bridget Farmer's gorgeous print studio near Daylesford I feel very inspired and energised.
Bridget taught me the ins and outs of drypoint etching and I seriously think I've found a new printmaking addiction. Bridget's work alone is inspiring enough. Take a look at this gallery of some of her gorgeous bird etchings. Oooh la la! Aren't they just divine?

Bridget's originally from Northern Ireland but has lived in Australia for a few years now. Her current home is the gorgeous bushland near Daylesford which is where you'll also find her peaceful printmaking studio. And I can vouch that Bridget knows her birds! Her studio has several enormous windows looking onto the bush and while we chatted over lunch and cups of tea she regularly pointed out various little feathered beauties as they perched in tree branches nearby. I was impressed. My own bird naming knowledge doesn't extend much beyond knowing what galahs, lorikeets, cockatoos and the occasional magpie look like.

And the printmaking! What fun! Working in the etching medium allowed me to unleash my passion for linear forms, something that is quite hard to portray through relief printing, like woodblock or lino. So based on my botanical sketches I printed up a storm of various botanical inspired etchings and got to experiment with colour and shading under Bridget's support and guidance. I can't speak highly enough of the soft and gentle approach Bridget has towards teaching what she knows about etching. It was a really magical couple of days for me.

The good news is Bridget's running classes. So you too can learn about various kinds of etching processes in the peace and quiet of Bridget's lovely bushland studio.

cactus flower one day wonder

When I woke up a few days ago, I noticed that one of my succulents just outside the back door had overnight produced this amazing looking flower. If you look closely you'll see why this is a wild and beautiful accomplishment of the natural world. That huge white flower came out of the small, round, green succulent on the left (the one with the small white spikey dots all over it). And the most incredible thing is the flower only blossomed for one day and then it collapsed, suggesting the force of pushing it out into the world for that short time, was all it could muster. It was a wonderful thing to have witnessed. I'm always impressed by the gorgeous and unusual range of flowers that succulents produce from their spikey and sometimes rubbery bodies. I have another in my kitchen that is quite ugly to look at, yet when it flowers, pushes out bright pink little buds all over it's round prickly base. I think I might even make a print with some of the flower images someday.

of dragonflies and other critters

This set is one I printed a few months ago when I was a bit obsessed with joining lots of little printed pieces together to create one image. I like the way you get the feel of segments of nature rather than a whole joined image. When framed the effect is quite lovely especially when the float-mount technique is used rather than the traditional style of presenting an image bound by a matt. I leave spaces (half a cm) between each fragment when framing and this allows the pieces to 'breathe'. Just before I left Japan I became intrigued with float mounting prints. It lets you appreciate the paper more (and who doesn't want to admire the beautiful papers around now?) and pushes the print/s out to the viewer in the frame rather than hiding it behind a matt (which works for some prints but not all). Seed pods from Australian plant life have always mezmerised me with their compact nature. I love the 'life force' symbolism connected to seed pods too especially in Australia where a lot of pods don't open until there's been tremendous heat created by a bush fire. Dragonflies and other insects are fascinating because of their linear quality - something that

most printmakers

enjoy.