Woodblock printing - Construction Lines series 2

 These prints use the invisible basis of patterns created by traditional geometry (drawing patterns with just compasses and straight edge). In the first series I tried to add the pattern itself to the grid - that turned out unexpectedly!

This time I was after the interaction between the grid of circles (flower of life) and the overlying grid of lines from which the shapes were chosen. 

The boards

The prints

I wasn't happy with my choice of colours - too many possibilities, not enough intention!

But I carried on...

... to the point of printing on the back of some prints -

Fronts

Turn them over!

Meanwhile I was enlarging the lines, working towards making the star into a negative shape; that was going much to slowly for my impatience to be finished with this project. In fact I decided just to stop.

Quite a lot of prints, but nothing to write home about

At the eleventh hour came this surprising juxtaposition - the dabsof paint waiting the be brushed evenly on the board (quick, take a photo!) -

I took a rubbing, and painted  and cut out some circular dabs - could this perhaps make something interesting? No, not really, but it was fun trying! 

My other favourite outcome of this project is the rough and ready rubbing of circles and lines -

Recent geometry

Practising painting (watercolours). Choosing colours can be difficult; currently I seem to be want to use blues, so many different shades...

(Needs a bit of red, I think)

Building up a stock of greetings cards.

Woodblock prints: Construction Lines series 1

 A project in Spring term 2022, based on the compass and ruler lines that are used to start geometrical construction of patterns.

Working out the grids (and deciding which to use) -

Rubbings and printing -

At some point before cutting I randomly jettisoned some of the curved grid lines and felt much happier about how things were going - more open, more interesting, more accidental and surprising. A bit of experimentation with layout of cut star shapes and another block was ready to cut and print with sumi ink onto the watercolour backgrounds.

In fact the stars originated from a cutout grid; I debated whether to print the "net" or the stars and had to make a mockup to decide. On the print, you can see the altered grid of circles; on one side, almost all the lines are left, forming a sort of border, over which I sometimes printed diagonal lines -

"Warming up the board" on newsprint, and adding some leftover stars; just playing...

Three of the finished prints, the coloured stars cut out and glued on -

More finished prints ...

... and my favourites -

Combining geometry and woodblock

 My first attempts to combine geometry drawings with woodblock printing were small, about 10cm x 15cm. Rather than standing the design nice and square, I had it tipping off the page -

Same idea, slightly different, a bit more interesting - and printed with rather random inking (using watercolour, not ink) -

Further inking experiments -

and combining blocks...

Other designs, not the right scale -

Interwoven -

After these came a larger printI was aiming to do a reduction print of some sort -

Even so a second block was needed, with other elements -

It didn't look very promising - 

So I started stitching, adding stars  ...

The threads are woven within each star -

A third block and a chance to try some other colours, why not -

New possibilities -

Would you call these monoprints? They're not strictly an edition! -

You can just about see the stitching on some of them.  The bottom row contains prints from the single blocks.

This one was printed in three stages, but hasn't been stitched yet -

Something to get back to, one day; possibly soon. I'd like some closure on this idea. Much as I appreciate the hexagon, it's a bit too "Grandmother's Flower Garden" for my current liking.

First step is to get individual photos of them all, and to arrange them from Best Favourite to least. I am resisting the temptation to sew them together into some sort of paper quilt!

Those have been languishing since May. In June I started thinking about the construction lines for the geometry drawings, and how they make nets containing the eventual shapes ... but that's another story ...

Geometry

During lockdown I happened on an online course taught by Tom Bree via West Dean. Loved it, and have been doing other online, and in-person, courses at the Prince's School of Traditional Arts, and following a few tutorials available on youtube and via websites. 

Most recent was a week-long course on five-fold geometry, taught by Mohammed Aziz. For four days we followed instructions to make ever more difficult patterns, and on the fifth daydid a less complicated one, and had time to add colour to the pattern. Ten-pointed stars are built up from a circle divided into five - using just compass and ruler, no numbers of any kind -

Colouring in -

Drawing a section of the pattern, which was then traced and transferred ten times to make the entire pattern -

Here are some I prepared earlier - the first is based on a pattern known as "pajaritos", little birds -

My workspace in Cheltenham is very like my workspace in London

An experiment in painting

Basic pattern (with stars instead of hexagons)

Inspiration - a tiled wall in the Alhambra

Variations on a starry theme -

Something a little more complicated

Finished

Evolving

Trying out colour schemes on patterns -

From a series of online lessons taught by Lisa DeLong

From the eight-fold symmetry online course taught by Tom Bree

Also from Tom Bree's course

Another early course was based on the windows of Ibn Tulun mosque, taught by Katya Nosyreva. These are works-in-progress from that series -

Some patterns have found their way into (onto?) woodblocks -

Some of these "flowers" received stitching to bring out the pattern