Dark to light

Yellow Tulips – work in progress

Nancy Power1 Comment

This is a sort of companion piece to my Renewal print, and I still don’t know what I am going to call it. They are actually dying tulips, but I’m not sure I want to call this ‘death’ (!). Something will come to mind I’m sure, and if not, then I’ll have a shufty through my thesaurus.
I’m printing this in the same way, starting out with a solid dark background before cutting out the areas to end with the lightest colour last. Well, that’s the plan, but I do often go dark, light, dark again, then lighter. There are no rules!

Here are the process photos so far. The next step is to cut out the leaves then do an orangey yellow, then a brighter yellow on the flowers.

Solid purple and blue background
First khaki green
Next, lighter khaki
Third brighter green yellow

Process of ‘Renewal’

Nancy PowerLeave a comment

I had been staring at this plant on my patio for weeks, thinking how I could use the image in a print. The old leaves had long died and shrivelled, with the vibrant new growth getting some early spring sunshine. My intention was to depict the cycle of nature, and death giving way to life etc. I realise that the dead fronds at the bottom do look more like roots now it’s finished, but I don’t really mind that! I think it kind of adds a different feeling to my initial idea.  (She says, in an effort to convince herself that this print has worked out…).

I finished this last weekend, or so I thought. But I still might print another dark layer on the lower half, just to get the saturation right. Then that will be it, I shall faff no more. And I will also take a much better photo of it too!

Here’s a look at the process;

Finished print of pots and vases

Nancy Power4 Comments

Here’s the final ‘test’ print of these pots. I’m pretty happy with how it came out, barring a few dodgy bits of carving and colour choice in some parts. I am now working on a bigger version which will probably look very different!

This one is on a paper called Botan, it’s quite crisp and clean looking;

IMG_1016

And this one is on Awagami paper, the texture in the paper gives it a very painterly look which I quite like:

IMG_1018

Test print – pots and vases

Nancy PowerLeave a comment

Here’s the progress so far of an idea I am testing out before going on to a larger scale. I have quite a few pots and vases scattered around my house so I thought I would attempt a ‘homage’ to Giorgio Morandi, one of my favourite artists. He is, of course, the master of this subject, so whether I can do it justice myself will have to be seen!

Once I have the final bright orange of the vase at the back and the creamy whiteness of the pot at the front it will look a lot better. Also, I am printing this from dark to light (as I did with my Winter Walk series) to add depth and texture.

This is my initial sketch done in coloured pencils. Obviously it would be difficult (but not impossible!) to replicate this texture, but I am hoping that I can make the image look quite painterly.

image