New work, new medium

After going to a friend's exhibit of small prints this summer, I began experimenting along the same lines. It's a kind of "printmaking," but is basically mixed-media collage involving photography, drawing, laser (or other) printing, etc. on paper which is then soaked, dyed, and left to dry. It's quite different from painting in general, and from my larger-scale work--although, I had recently been working on canvas and board, laid flat, applying paint and gloss-medium mixes by pouring and manipulating with the end of the brush. Here are a few initial images. I'm planning to finish a show for June, at the Garage (www.thegarage-cville.com).

This image and the first are from photographs of the vultures that hang out in a great, dead oak tree near our home. Sometimes there are more than thirty there at one time. They've been a fascination for my family and, over the years, we have taken a lot of photographs of them and their almost cliche perch.

I still haven't landed on my next theme. I'm leaning toward a simple collection showing beloved trees. Below is another near our home.

The three pieces below are based on borrowed images lying around in notebooks from a few earlier series related to birds. These are among my first remotely successful prints. Initially I was just using photos from others, hoping only to get the paint to drive through the paper without completely obscuring the existing composition.

The two prints below begin with my grandmother's photos from the 1920s. I recently happened upon a gorgeous album from her childhood and early adulthood. Many of the prints are full of gaping and glaring spots - a sign of the early technology and her amateur use of it, but so appropriately like memory.