In the first ‘Winter Beach Botany Printmaking’, I covered what Botanical Mono-Prints are and how they are made. They are ‘Vegetarian Gyotaku’ prints, if you will (check out part one if you haven’t yet). Dry time is necessary for a finished piece so none were pictured. I thought it might be nice to continue the story with some shots of how they turned out and ideas for you if you decide to try it.
Kitchen table full of fun instead of food.
These prints were cut specifically to fit on folded A5 greeting cards. Pre-cutting the paper is a nice favor to do for yourself as it helps you create the format of each print to the paper size and cutting is not easy to do once you’ve got printing ink all over your fingers (this is messy business).
Tiny Tim hung his ornament with care.
Mono-prints came in handy for making all of my holiday cards this season. That’s one idea for you. Tiny Tim and his ornament is a non-vegetarian, or Gyotaku print. In this case, sand shrimp from the bait shop were the perfect subject. My Norfolk Pine tree was a willing donor for the plant part of the print.
Lily posed with a halo on her head but I still didn’t print her. She waited patiently through another print session hoping to get out and play. We did get out on the low tide, when it was safe, to check out what the King Tides had done…and maybe what they had brought for us to find.
Angel Dog
OSU buoy beached by the King Tide.
Sure enough, the swell was intense enough to bring the OSU buoy onto shore. These fellas had drug it up the beach to load at Nye turn-around. You can also see all the sand dispatched on the road from the high tide.
Looking North to Yaquina Head
The West winds brought fantastic micro-bursts to add to the King Tide drama. You can see Yaquina Head in the distance, to the right, where the shots in the first blog were taken.
Sign of a good idea?
Lots of debris on the beach; pallets, lumber, plastic, bait boxes, other fishing gear, etc. We picked up some plastic, gear, trash, and this light from a fishing vessel. I was told that they’re fairly common to find but this is my first and I think it’s pretty neat. It has the signs of having been out to sea for a while. It makes you wonder where it’s from and what stories it could tell.
After receiving one of those microbursts with hail on our heads, we made it back to the kitchen studio to finish up the last batch. I added color to the blossoms in this one with sumi ink and added my signature ‘chop’. Instead of signing my work with a signature, I like to leave a symbol that doesn’t mess too much with the over all aesthetic of the work. These are blank inside so the result is a card you can send or give that is also a frame-able art piece. Doubling down on a thoughtful gesture is always a good idea!
Thistle and Crocosmia blossom
Information inside!
Since these are Botanical Mono-prints, a little information about the subject would be nice, right? Each of these comes with a description, where they come from, if they are indigenous, and other interesting factoids. They will be available soon on the website and are in the studio now. I’ve got one more chapter to this King Tide and Print story. Next one has seaweed, fossil shells, sea sponge, shots of big swell, and some King tide debris with labels in another language! Stay tuned, like, share, and let me know if you have any questions. Cheers!
