Working with what I have

I know I'm not the only one who has days sometimes when nothing works, I have no ideas and I feel like I should just give up trying to be an artist.  Last Friday was one of those - just terrible! (It didn't help that I was trying to print in greens. That, I think I should give up on!)
At least I have other creative interests and after giving up for the day I could do some knitting!

I have had a couple of much more positive days in the studio in the last week and also have to remind myself that part of the issue at the moment is that I'm working under the self-imposed restriction of working with what I have. As a printmaker who doesn't often work on a large scale I have lots of small pieces of 'leftover' paper and this year (being somewhat financially challenged!) I am attempting to use up what I have.

Also, I suppose part of the problem at the moment is that I have been working on a body of work that will hopefully have several  groups of outcomes - a series of square format prints in different (smallish) sizes, some larger works that will be pieced from yet smaller squares and a series of small artist books. So currently I have a lot of work in progress, but at times have difficulty in seeing how I will get to a finished state with much of it.
So these are some of the pieces that hopefully will eventually be part of something!

And trying out some possibilities for a pieced work in blues...

or this

(Most days) I have enjoyed experimenting with colour and layering forms both natural and manmade, using stencils on a gelatin plate, working with cardboard collagraph plates, and finally overprinting some with linocut text - fragments of Leonard Cohen lyrics/poetry.
Still a way to go!

Too late for a quick look back !!

Oh my goodness, I started writing this post as a quick look at the last few months of 2015 as the year was finishing!
But now it's long gone!
I was just going to touch upon some of the highlights of the last two or three months of the year.
I'm going to have to give up on that and just mention a couple of things here now, then start off 2016 with a new post about current things.
Forgive me.

During 2015, my first full year of living in central Victoria I was very happy to become part of the Goldfields Printmakers group. More information about the group can be found here.
James Pasakos, from Federation University, Ballarat, attended  IMPACT9 - the international biennial printmaking, held in 2015 in Hangzhou, China, from 18 to 21 September. There he presented a folio of prints by members of the group referencing the history of the Chinese prospectors in the region during the gold rush of the later 19th century.
For my research I visited Bendigo's Golden Dragon Museum and Chinese Garden. I was very impressed by the huge collection of artefacts, objects and installations.  I could have stayed much longer than the time I'd allowed! I'll have to get back there.

I've always been attracted to ginger jars, so used one on each print, combined with
calligraphy on the first taken from the inner wall of the garden.
Well-known Beijing poet and calligrapher Ke Wen Hui arrived in Australia for a family visit in 1998. Upon viewing the Golden Dragon Museum he was impressed by the Chinese heritage in Bendigo, and composed several poems, painting them on the walls.
The given translation of the poem I used is:
'In deep thinking, visitors will go home with cranes nestled in their sleeves. Behold the beauty and prosperity of the Garden. Surrounded by the tranquility of this environment, you will only think reflective thoughts.'
The other image on the second print is a detail from an embroidered garment.
(Somewhat dodgy images, sorry.)

My last post was just before a small solo exhibition I had in October/November at 69 Smith Street gallery, a small artist-run gallery in Collingwood (an inner suburb of Melbourne). The gallery is a double-storey shopfront with multiple spaces. It's nice to exhibit there because there are always several other solo or group shows there at the same time and so you get quite a good audience.  I had a small space upstairs and showed prints from four different bodies of work.  The last year or so has been a time of trying to work out where I'm going.

At the opening, with a couple of works from the series With these hands - self portrait.

I have made quite a lot of work relating to knitting and other needlecrafts over the years.
The works in the image above continue that theme.

There were a couple of recent works from the ongoing series, A Taxonomy of (Art) Cats and new works messing about with still life elements and layering.
This one is more recent; getting a bit braver with colour!

I'm really enjoying working on this series, being very playful and experimental with colour.
I'll post some more images quite soon.