Cricketts Inky Art Blot

After the face disaster, I started a new painting. This painting will be a sister to the fish zeppelin and will be a fish submarine! They are both obviously inspired by Jules Verne, but also the collages of Braque and Schwitters. It is still in the first stage, but the composition is pretty much down. The other painting in the series that I worked on today is of Lady Penelope's carpet bag. It also has the same composition treatments of the last few paintings and prints that I am currently working on. I used to paint one oil painting at a time, waiting days between each color before resuming work. This was very boring and I often abandoned work before completion. Now I try to work on two or three paintings at once. Working in oil paint on a number of paintings at once, helps keep the inspiration strong and encourages style similarities between each. This time around, I have 5 on the go, yay!

I got myself out of a rut that was setting in by painting a Monty Pythonesque fish zeppelin. It's coming along nicely and is probably my favorite painting of this series of work so far. I posted a fish snippet onto Milliande to get a little feedback, so it will be interesting to see what the folks there think. I have not finished, but I am certainly done for the night :-) Whilst working on this, I have had a second painting on the go to keep me busy while the paint is drying. Location: Twin Lakes Studio

I am trying to get the under painting done on enough work to show at NadaDada. Some of these paintings are supposed to be Victorian style posters such as the one above. I have many hours of detail work to do on all of these, but I know I need to have the composition down by the end of the week. Eeek!!! This painting is going to be a fish shaped zeppelin. I was going to have an exhibition in October to show some of this work, but that has been canceled and maybe in July or August which tightens the deadline again. Bummer.

I am beginning to wonder why I am making such small little prints. The time and labor that goes into them hardly seems worth it when hardly anyone realizes. I look at it today and think, hmmm, I could have painted that in an hour and made it more detailed. I guess I am just feeling grumpy today. I printed and carved a little clock print this week and last. I hope to add more layers today. Here is the progress so far: This is the 4th layer being added (which also means week 4 in drying terms- yes I am grumpy). Here they are drying with another miniature I am working on in parallel. Here is layer 5. I rolled the ink onto plate in white, then wiped off where did not want white to show. I am wiping off with my finger and a cloth, so each will be slightly different. Layer 6 will be printed with the same roll and wipe technique but in grey today. Looking outside things are starting to green up, despite the sleet we had yesterday.

I had printed this miniature with 5 color layers over the past couple of weeks, yesterday I added an extra layer of white to soften the edges of the feather. In the background you can see some of the second version alarm clock prints. I have also started playing around with images to make these digital prints. The glasses are a reoccurring theme.

Last week I had printed a small print to go with the relief cut series. Part of this was carved with "Softkut", an eraser type of material that is stamped rather than hand rubbed. I had also printed a small white circle made from precut relief carving block, also by stamping. Today I added a clock face to the bottom corner, over the top of the white. I am thinking of exhibiting this for Artown this July. I am helping to organize an exhibition at Wildflower Art Village for the Printmaker's Conspiracy and have quite neglected the fact I need to put some prints of my own into it! The weather is cold this morning, but I see a few signs of Spring from the window.