Roots and All

Things have been really busy lately, more than the normal business. For one thing, Owen has taken to climbing all the furniture, so I've been taking him out on little adventures more to avoid having to say "no" all day long as he tries out his new climbing skills. For another thing, there is a colony of ants making its way from my basement to the kitchen. Getting rid of them is requiring much trial and error and constant vigilence. I've managed to reduce the population a lot, but they are not completely gone and they're really trying my patience!

I did manage to squeeze in some printing time this weekend and I'm excited about the results. These are gelatin monotypes--using gelatin as the printing surface, Akua Kolor inks rolled on top, handcut stencils placed, and building up layer by layer. Maybe they are technically monoprints because I'm using stencils? I'm not sure---the trees are all separate stencils, so there is a lot of variation each time. I love using the Akua Kolor with gelatin and playing with different color and composition variations with each print. Since the layers of ink are pretty thin, the paper (Rives BFK) is not overly saturated, so I don't anticipate that drying time will be a problem.

For the second time in a row, I made more gelatin than I was able to use. I actually have a big baking sheet of gelatin for some larger prints, but there is about a 50/50 chance I will be able to use it before it spoils. With the weather this time of year, it's hard to predict (temperature and humidity affect the gelatin).

When I was turning into our neighborhood today, I saw a huge tree with the word "who" spray painted on it. It struck me as very strange, but now I'm thinking of incorporating text with my trees in future prints.