The theme of this exhibition is Water Portraits and my work is drawn from my experiences at Coochiemudlo Island last year.
I printed the first layer of monoprints in early May but have only just revisited them to experiment with a few ideas I've been developing. I wanted to express the notion of 'out of sight, out of mind'. Its what we don't see that matters, in this case, what lies beneath the surface of the oceans, bays, rivers. What damage is there that we ordinary people don't see? I was pleased recently to hear that biologists were checking on Moreton Bay's dugong population to see how their seagrass beds were affected by the January floods. But what about the rest of the ecosystems in the bay? Do most people really care as long as the trawlers bring in the prawns and fish for us to consume? I spent my childhood fishing in Moreton Bay so I feel a real personal connection to it.
The link to Coochimudlo Island is in the cottonwood leaves that I used. I love them! I have also used fishing line which created beautiful curly lines, like the swirling of the tide around mangrove roots.....
In my prints I also have experimented with embossing, something I haven't done a lot of, and required a fair bit of playing with objects and paper to get the right texture and look.
I initially printed about a dozen prints, and will end up with only about 4 that I consider suitable for exhibition. I'm really glad that I have given myself plenty of time to meet the submission deadlines, you can never 100% predict a monoprint.
I'll be revisiting my prints in the coming weeks, after having a break from them so I can see what needs to be done, lets hope I am still happy with them and can consider them complete.
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| one of the prints, in progress |
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| ...and yet another use for rubber bands.....embossing! |
love what you are creating...elastic bands have sooooooo many uses don't they!?xxlynda
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