Busy Season

Is your garden growing an inch a day now? or at least the weeds? Mine is. And spring projects, long promised are begging for attention. In Muse Group this week we made monoprints with our acrylic paints, using stone paper for a plate. (More about Stone Paper here. )My first “pull” was a vibrant one that turned into a story for this time of year.

the earth is busy sprouting

so here I dream of apples

of birds darting and swooping

on spring’s many errands

 

yet still

there are only buds

plumping up to make pink popcorn

and seduce butterflies

The plum tree has bloomed and leafed out. The weeping cherry, beneath which my mother’s ashes lie, has just bloomed. And I wait expectantly for the apple blossoms whose sweet nectar is an invitation to the Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies, that lay their eggs on the vine, so that I may daily visit the hungry munching caterpillars with the orange polka dots. Simple pleasures of spring I must make time for.

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The Season’s Rasa

 

acrylic and collage on BFK Rives paper, 10 X 11″ (monoprint)

Rasa: [Sanskrit], the spirit/soul of something.  Capturing the very essence of something to evoke emotion in the viewer’s brain.

acrylic and collage on stone paper, 10 X 11″, (the printing plate)

Concerts, bright lights on a stage, voices lifted in unison. The dark of the year engulfs, making its demands on the spirit.

Stay with color. Let it take you to spring. Notice the deeper color palette, the burgundies and golds and deep russets. Pair them with a violet sky. Light a candle each day and rejoice.

More experiments in printing here; the first image a “pull” from the “plate” of the second.  The textures left behind were so intriguing that the plate deserved its own finishing touches. The slick surface of the stone paper makes it easier to scrape out shapes and wipe paint off before it dries. Stone paper, also known as rock paper is a durable paper-like product manufactured from calcium carbonate (marble waste) bonded with high-density polyethylene.  It’s a bit like Yupo, if you’ve ever tried that.

 

A-bombination

If you let one thing lead to another, you might end up with these. . .

monoprint with fluid acrylics on BFK Rives paper and stone paper collage, 10 X 11″

Bombinate. I bomb. You bomb. We bomb. They bomb-inate [buzz and hum] and taste the sweetness of the seasons, a spicy mixture of humus and herbs.

Abom(b)ination, an assault, an intense combination of bombs and angry countries, nations in abom(b)inate mode with no nature to groove on or calm them down.

I’ll bombinate with the mushrooms and lichen, hum for world peace and try not to expect too much, too soon. Try not to be too disappointed when the bumblers don’t return and the other kind of bombing abominators get too bumbling.

Dictionary definitions:

bombinate: to make a humming or buzzing noise

abomination: a vile, shameful, or detestable action, condition, habit, etc.

You probably know what I’m getting at here without my spelling out the politics of it. The art technique of it is more fun to talk about. In Muse Group we used stone paper for the printing plate in our lesson on monoprinting.  Not the usual, but that’s what we had. The “plate” was in most cases more interesting than the print.

acrylic on stone paper with collage, 10 X 11″

Can you see how the print at the top is the mirror image of this one?  The stone paper is a bit like Yupo, if you’ve ever tried that. You get all kinds of interesting textures with juicy paint. Use a rubber tipped color shaper to scrape paint off before it dries. After pulling a couple prints I did some scraping and shaping and let this one dry, then added color and line and collage elements later.

The word bombinate came from interesting-word-file which I started years ago. I could just imagine the bumble bees going after the pollen in this delectable flower!