We have had so much grey and so much rain it has been difficult to pick times to get out and walk; but on one occasion I walked to G's orchid house and was offered the joy of the blooms in this post.
The orchids seemed to be enjoying the rain and warmer weather - beautiful colours and forms to bring joy and reinforce hope. I love the fresh raindrops on the orchids.
In grey and dark times it is so uplifting to discover fragments of beauty close to home.
As a few folk would be aware I have been experimenting with alcohol and acrylic inks to see how they might work together and on different surfaces (papers).
In this blog post I share the outcome of those experiments including the opening image that I have called - Burnt bushes - silhouette after dusk: translucent yupo 'paper'; archival ink and permanent marker sketch; acrylic ink applied over with balsa wood implement (see end of blog); and alcohol over that - again applied with balsa wood.
Moonscape - white yupo paper; alcohol inks dropped directly onto paper; ink lines and acrylic moon added when dry.
Moody Moon - translucent yupo paper; archival ink sketch; acrylic moon; and alcohol ink painted over.
Moody evening - white yupo paper: 2-3 layers of alcohol ink applied with 10mm flat brush.
Fishing poles - dark dawn - 300gsm watercolour paper: archival ink sketch; acrylic ink applied with brush; alcohol ink overlay; acrylic ink touch up; and posca pen sun.
Fishing huts - through mist and grass - white yupo paper: acrylic painting of huts, sky and foreground; alcohol ink overlay; acrylic ink overlay; grass drawn through wet acrylic ink with pencil.
Dandelion shadows -translucent yupo paper: rough archival ink sketch; and alcohol ink applied with balsa wood implement.
Silver moon in winter landscape - translucent yupo paper: archival ink sketch; acrylic ink overlay applied with wide brush; alcohol ink applied with wide brush; posca pen moon and stars.
Moon in dark starry sky - translucent yupo paper: alcohol ink base applied with wide brush; acrylic ink moon; second coat of alcohol ink; posca pen moon and stars.
Balsa wood implement - about 8-9cm wide. Fiona used this when doing huge calligraphic letters. She suggested I give it a go. I think it will become one of my things.
Quite a lot of lessons learnt. I have written notes on each piece. I will now think about which technique and sequence and paper I will adopt.
I'm experimenting with inlaying and mounting melted pewter in and on timber. The image above shows what happens when you pour 700 degrees heated pewter into prepared holes and grooves in an offcut of timber.
As you can see from photo below the process started with crushing and cutting up some pewter goblets; and cutting some rudimentary grooves and holes in a offcut of bunya pine.
When I was ready to do the pour I had Fiona on hand to take photos and quench the timber once I had done the pour.
As you can see below the outcome was not great but has potential. I think if I do another pour into the burnt grooves-holes and only heat the metal to 500 degrees I might have greater success in the pour. The goal is to have the melted metal contrasting with the blackened timber
I have also decided to carve textured squares into a graphite block to see what might be the outcome when iI pour metal into the form. The resulting textured squares of metal could be mounted on timber???
Given what I'm doing with inks and watercolour at the moment it would seem I'm in an experimental frame of mind. To be continued in 2025!!!!
The Peace in the Trees sculptural walk was launch some 9 years ago - the link takes you to Art 4 Place's blogspot and a scroll through it will give an insight into the background to this work.
Fiona and I visited the sculptures on a recent walk. Though some get vandalised a bit from time to time it is still good to see the sculptures aging in place and fitting so well into the landscape. My sculpture (Imagine Peace) pictured above is growing some mould and is surrounded by trees and plants just as it was designed to do.
Some more images of the sculptures follow.
It is good to see that these pieces about peace and the environment can still add to the conversation today.
As many are aware one of my regular creations is the Daily Word sets (see above) made up of one shallow mannered bowl and 7 leaf forms with inspirational words stamped on the. The bowls vary in texture as they are cut from recycled silver plated metal.
In addition to the Daily Word Sets I have printed a limited addition of my 7 Daily Words prose poems (see images below) that stand alone or can be purchased to complement the Daily Words set.. The poem booklets are $39.95 each.
Checking gallery- shop inventory recently revealed I had two complete sets of Daily Words and two sets of word leaves so I decided to hammer out a few more bowls. Process photos follow.
Images of completed highly polished bowls follow.
So now there are four Daily Word Sets ($75 per set) available.
I'm still testing how the alcohol and acrylic inks handle the different 'paper' surfaces; and I'm learning a lot about what can be layered on top of what!!!! Above - 3 layers on watercolour paper - acrylic ink, alcohol ink and acrylic ink.
A few photos showing the testing process.
A few lessons learnt include: ink on 300gsm watercolour paper works well and both ink and acrylic can be layered on top of each other because of the porous and textured nature of the paper - however the colours can have a dull appearance; if you put ink on the yupo paper first the acrylic ink won't adhere - though I worked out if you give it a light sand it will adhere; and you need to clean yupo paper with clear alcohol to remove any grease from finger prints to encourage full coverage.