Thinking about future work ...

... and revisiting the past.

One of the very first forays into print I did yonks ago (it must be something like 5 years) and I did not really know quite what I was doing, but was in a very 'what if' frame of mind.

I started with a very simple print plate that I made sticking vaguely leaf shaped card pieces onto a card base (looking back on it this was probably a very simple collograph plate, but at the time that was not a term I recognised).  It is significant that I used the shiny surface of some packaging.

I printed using very 'wet' Windsor and Newton inks like these - painting them onto the card surface.  The shiny surface just 'held' the ink rather than it soaking in. A lucky accident because I was very green in those early days.

I printed onto A5 sized rag paper, but I had very roughly 'sketched' leaf shapes onto this paper with a wax candle before printing - this obviously created a resist and the white areas on the paper.

Here are a couple of those print runs.

Then I scanned them onto the ancient old laptop, and framed the originals (they hang on the landing in my 'home from home').

Now they have popped up in some work already finished. You can see them here,a finished mixed media embroidery in the Gallery section of this blog. (tissue hand coloured with a print block and with sweetie foils, then stitched with the prints collaged on. There is beading in there too!)

Having scanned the prints I did a bit of manipulation and then printed them onto the printer ready fabric pieces you can buy from Crafty Computer Paper  here in the UK (sorry to my foreign readers - I don't think these people ship abroad, but I am sure you can find similar suppliers in the USA or Australia).  I know you can also make your own fabric printer ready - there is something you can buy from Art Van Go and you can iron it onto freezer paper to make the cotton feed through the printer, but to be honest, this isn't something I have tried. Other blogs may help you with that.  Anyway, it was these fabrics that I collaged onto the piece. This example, plus a couple of others are now a good couple of years old, though they have not really had a public outing. 

Any how, thinking about this years Festival of Quilts (months away but my time is precious and I have to plan ahead!) I have an idea hatching in my mind. 

Hence this weekend I revisited those original scans and had another little play with them in 'Print.net' - manipulating the colours to give me these alternatives. 

You can probably tell. this last one is the odd one out - the first 4 are all variations of one original print. 

A bit more manipulation is probably needed but I think a plan is being hatched and a design is forming in my mind.