Home Printing Experiments

Three home printing experiments...which do you like? Two are hand coloured in inks.

Finch in the Berries

This goldfinch was enjoying the rowan berries in the tree outside our bedroom window. There are always tiny birds in the tree such as blue tits. I liked the simple range of colours here.

Printing Press

I did a drawing of the printing press at my class, which I am deeply obsessed by. Its an enormous, grotesquely decorated Victorian behemoth of a machine. I might do a print of it.

I am also feeling inspired by Japanese woodblock prints...

Printmaking 3

This week’s printmaking ( yes, I missed week 2 as I was at a lecture on historic bookbinding ) was linocut. This is a loose and crazy linocut of an orchid in Duthie Park Wonter Gardens, printed in varied coloured ink. 

Linocut is really relaxing as you just gouge the image out of a square of lino, ink it and then print. It is very physical, graphic and fun.

Next week is reductive linocut where you cut successive layers to print with different colours.

Charity Shop Haul

As I was working at Braemar Castle yesterday, I braved the torrential rain to pop into my favourite charity shop in Ballater.

I got...
Ex M and S Classic range brown tweed skirt £5
Maxmara black and white tweed skirt £5.50
Amazing designer deal, although zip is tricky and could not be replaced due to fragile fabric.
I might sew another zip inside the first zip. First zip sticks and does not go down very far, requiring a wrestle of skirt up over hips.
Impressionist Drawings exhibition catalogue £1.50.

The Clan Cancer charity shop always has the best stuff!
Do you have a favourite charity shop?

Ukrainian Food 2

Today’s Ukrainian recipe is Borscht, a soup or stew.

Here you see the chicken stock, (which is ideally actually made with beef) of chicken pieces, onion and bay leaf, simply boiled together for one hour. The frying pan has onion fried with red pepper and grated carrot. After one hour the fried veggies are added to the stock together with potato and beetroot. At end add kidney beans, garnish with sour cream and dill.

We serve with beer. A cheap, hearty and healthy dinner. 

Printmaking Class 1: Monotype

These are my two favourite direct print monotype or one-off prints from my first printmaking class.The top one is taken from memory from a painting of irises I did and the second a version of the  Blairs College picture from an earlier post. I like the messy, textural, sketchy quality of the print technique. In prints, everything comes out in reverse!

Eastern European Food Project

As it is Autumn I decided to start my new Eastern European cookery project. It seems appropriate for  the newly cold weather. I am using the Mamushka book by the brilliantly named Olia Hercules. This concentrates on Ukranian food with forays into Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Ossetia, Azerbaijan, Bessarabia, Tartar and Moldova so maybe this is more FSU.

My first recipe was the classic chicken soup with dumplings. You make a basic chicken stock with chicken pieces, onion, carrot and bay. After an hour of simmering, remove the bones and shred the chicken into it, add spring onion, dill and carrot slices and then boil the plain dumplings in it. Great for a cold night.

Next up the classic borscht...

Papal Tower

If you love architecture, look up! Roofline of Blairs College near Aberdeen.  A spectacular crown style tower top with a papal crown on it just for good measure. The New College was completed in 1897 in the baronial gothic style.