winter season |

Do you ever try to think like a tree? Like in “Gee I’m so thirsty!” or “It’s getting so cold. I’d enjoy a blanket of leaf mulch to restore my energies.” This piece made me think like a tree.

I started by painting foliage and trunk shapes with water and droppering three acrylic inks into the water shapes so they moved and blended while I tipped the paper. Then I took a color shaper and pulled some of the wet ink out to create branches and spritzed the foliage lightly with water to suggest leaf shapes.

Daler Rowney acrylic inks: Antelope Brown, Indian Yellow, Dutch Blue

Time to winter

send roots down there

with the gopher and grub

under the shroom spore and worm tracks

While we sleep

they do the work

turn leaf mulch and water

into blooming flower beds

So take a deep

soul

quieting

breath

of loamy air

Settle into the perfection of this season

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.

voicesinunison

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.