I'm focusing on my piece(s) for the show in June and decided if I'm to have any chance of making more than one tree I need to have a LOT of imagery to choose from so Hops and I set out to collect as many varied mud prints as we could on the basis that these are quick to collect but will add a 'genuine' element to the piece whilst still being prints.
I bought 87 sheets of 60gsm kitakata paper from the Awagami Factory in Japan when they had a special offer on it. I used the reduction linocut I made at Wisley to test how it printed. It's very strong and has a much 'furrier' surface than the other kitakatas I've used which are super smooth on one side. I want to see whether it will print an etching nicely as I think it might.
It didn't seem to mind being pressed into wet mud and I didn't have any problems with tearing (apart from one wet bit that the dog's claw caught!). I got some really lovely marks once I'd figured out the best type of mud. I feel like a mud printing expert now!! Because it's been much drier recently the surfaces have dried a lot but it rained overmight so I thought this would be great for mud. What it actually meant was a lot of surface water that the paper soaked up instantly but without actually transferring a muddy mark with the water. We tried a few different places and types of mud and found a few good sites with tyre tracks, bike tracks, footprints and paw prints. Hops (the dog) also walked up and down the sheets when they were all laid out too so it felt like a collaborative piece!
I'm amusing my neighbours by hanging them to dry fully on the washing line in the garden today. It's breezy without being too strong a wind, after a discussion about ways of sealing the mud onto the paper with a few people in the group and Jonathan yesterday I decided that the safest option is just to leave it be. If all the mud falls off thats fine as it leaves the marks behind and its them I'm after rather than the actual mud. I'm hoping that a day in the sun and a little blowing around will get most of the excess mud off since I want to tear and stitch all the prints together to make the trees and I'm rather concerned that if I have mud crumbling off the paper all over the place it'll be a very messy experience that might break my sewing machine. If I had a room to do this away from the rest of the family it would be better but I'm confined to the kitchen - I don't really want to eat off a muddy table!
I'm feeling really excited about getting started on the making for this project. Tomorrow I'm going to make lots of monoprints with all teh goodies I foraged recently. I'm still fascinated by the amount I learned about the grasses and ferns etc. just by foraging for them. I can't get over how quickly grasses go from nothing to a full seed head - two weeks! I want to incorporate lots of them into this project I think. I also want to test out this paper again for the monoprints as I think it'll be lovely for them.
I've decided to make an etched linocut to compliment the etching plate and add another type of mark to the variety that I already have. I plan on putting multiple layers on lots of the prints and overprinting an etching with a linocut seems a simple way of achieving it. I'm going to make the plate plate nice and big so that I can cover a large area in one go as the lithino prints I make are quite big.
I've been colour hunting in the forest and plan on introducing some dusty grey-pink that I've seen on lots of the silver birch, orange for the beech and sepia for the oak and pine.
I was toying witg the idea of stainig all the paper to make sure there was no white paper visible, but actually now I'm thinking that a little white paper might be nice...?! I'm undecided but think I can over-print any parts I need to with mono-printing to pull it together.