Columbine - Embroidered Linocut

INSPIRATION

When I started working on the embroidered pieces for my solo show at the Weavers Guild I wrote down a long list of plants I thought would have parts that lend themselves to embroidery.  As I worked on the project, I became less focused on the embroidery and increasingly bead-obsessed.  I remember the day I was looking through photos, trying to decide on my next subject, when I saw the above Columbine photo I took back in 2017.  I saw those long, yellow dangling stamens with their club-like anthers at the end and knew this was it.  I could use beads to represent the club-like anthers at the end... a perfect use of beads! 

SKETCH

I began as I always do by making a pencil sketch of the flower on tracing paper.

TRANSFER

Below is a short video of me transferring my sketch to the carving plate. ( Music: "Abstract Fashion Pop" by "Qube Sounds" from Pixabay.)

Here is the plate with the transferred image.

CARVING

Strangely, I didn't have very many photos of carving, but you can see the entire carving process in this video. (Music by "RomanSenykMusic" from Pixabay.)

I don't often talk about the next step, but it is important if you are printing with lighter colors. I clean the graphite off the plate with vegetable oil.  If I didn't do this step, the graphite would show up in the yellow parts of the flower.

TEST PRINT

In this video I show the cleaning of the plate and how I make a quick test print with a stamp pad. (Music by "Alexi Action" from Pixabay.)

I wish I had made a couple of these prints on nicer paper.  I liked how it looked all in red.  I could go back and make some, but it is unlikely. (I actually did go back and tried to make some purple prints, but had a phenomenally bad printing day and got zero good prints from my efforts.)

PRINTING

I knew the photo above showed my printing set up better, but I had to include the photo below for the cuteness factor.  

I am not normally a rainbow roll type of girl.  But this color gradient in the Columbine called out for this technique.  For the non-printmakers out there, a rainbow roll involves rolling out two or more different colors of ink and combining them on the roller before inking the plate.  It creates a beautiful, soft gradient between the colors.  

If you've never seen a rainbow roll in action, watch this video! (Music: "Winning Elevation" by "Hot Music" from Pixabay.)

I always love how the plate looks with wet ink and it was fun to see how the rainbow roll would look on the plate.

IMHO, this is the perfect use of a rainbow roll!  I was super pleased with how they turned out.

CHOP SIGNATURE

I don't always show this step either, but I think adding a chop signature adds a lot to the piece.  It is always a risk that you might ruin the piece, but I think it is worth it.

EMBROIDERY PLANNING

In order to ensure I wouldn't end up with a half stitch at the end of my embroidery lines, I scanned the print and brought it into Illustrator.  In this program I can make all my lines exactly where I want them and then tell it to make the lines "dashed."  I can then tell the computer I want each "dash" to be 4 millimeters long.  If I had a half stitch at the end of a line, I could then make the "dash" 4.1 or 3.9 mm long.  

This may seem like overkill, but it is exceedingly helpful to know where to hammer the holes for the embroidery.  When I finished planning I printed out my lines.  At first I tried using translucent paper, but I couldn't see the print clearly enough.  My friend Tiffany suggested I use a transparency and it worked perfectly.  Below you can see the transparency next to the print.

HAMMERING THE HOLES

In order to make the holes in the correct position, I simply placed my transparency onto my print and lined up the edges.  Once I started hammering a few holes, the transparency was held in place my the holes themselves.  It is nerve wracking at first, but once you get going it is weirdly relaxing.

I took a lot of photos at this stage because I thought the print looked surprisingly pretty with all the holes in it.

SEWING

I toyed with the idea of using a gradient of colors for the embroidery.  Here you can see me playing with that idea.

In the end I chose to go with gold embroidery thread.  I had already used the gold on the "Buddha Seeds" and thought it would be nice to have a common thread running throughout.  Plus, I thought the gold added a mystical element to it.  Below you can see the print halfway through the embroidery.

Almost done here!

I am always so relieved to finish.  The risk of tearing the paper is no joke and I breathed a huge sigh of relief at the end of this one because the holes were very close together.

BEADWORK

I had A TON of options for the beads on this print.  I played around with all sorts of different bead options, including Buddhas, elephants, flowers, various colors of glass beads, seed beads...basically all the beads I owned! I ended up with a mixture of mostly yellow flowers, gold spacers, a cinnabar flower and a single red Buddha.  One of the themes I wanted to convey in making these pieces was the idea of finding the miraculous in the mundane.  Along those lines I also love the idea that every sentient being has a Buddha-nature.  So including the Buddha among the yellow "anthers" worked perfectly.

In addition to bead choice, bead placement was also important.  It was helpful to take a photo of various bead placements and then look at them on screen.  I started off with the beads too wide and slowly worked my way to their final arrangement (at the top).  Here you can see my photo stream from that day.

And here is the final embroidered and beaded print!

FRAMING

As I  mentioned in my "Milkweed" post, I had to order special frames that had more depth to them to accommodate the beads.  I accidentally received MANY frames from my order so I will be offering framed prints on my website.

SHOW

Below you can see the "Milkweed" and "Columbine" together at the Weavers Guild show, plus the label.

While making the above label for the show I was stunned when I found a website that described several aspects of the Columbine I never knew that resonated deeply with me.  It described the mantra of the Columbine as "Faith not Fear."  I haven't written the post yet about the "Buddha Seeds", but I had a number of synchronicities occur while making that print that had a "theme" of fearlessness.  It seems the universe was trying to get a message across to me.  I think I struggle quite a bit with fear, as we all do being human.  But I have been finding the more I put my faith in life itself, the more life keeps showing up for me in amazing ways.  Having faith in life doesn't mean I always get what I want.  Rather it means when things don't go my way, I now take a step back...pause...and say to myself, "This isn't the way I wanted to go, but I can't change this...so let's see what there is to see on this new path."  And to my surprise, the new path is often fascinating beyond anything I could have come up with.

The website also stated, "The Columbine reminds us that there is far more going on here than what we see and hear in the physical realm." When I read that sentence, I nearly fell over.  It is almost verbatim what I have been saying for years since my woo-woo meditation experience!

And finally, the Columbine was also described as "a flower for the spiritual seeker."  When I started this print, I had no idea the Columbine had these traits. But somehow the photo I snapped in 2017 of a delicate Columbine found its way to me and called out to be made into a print.  Life somehow weaves everything together, pulling what appear to be disparate threads in different times and places into one cohesive grand work of art.  The magic of it all leaves me in awe.  It is indeed the perfect flower for me.   

This print is now available at NessyPress.com!

Milkweed - Embroidered Linocut

With flower nectar and milk-laden leaves

Who nourishes the Monarch?

Mother Milkweed

INSPIRATION

In September of 2022 I received an email from the Weaver's Guild Exhibition Committee asking if I would be interested in having a solo show.  Of course I said, yes.  And then they asked if I might be able to make new work that had embroidery incorporated into the pieces, like one they had seen of mine in a previous show.  At that point I had only ever made one piece with embroidery.  It was a piece called "The Weaver" which you can see here.  I remembered it was a little difficult to sew that piece, but figured it was because the piece was so large.  I have always been interested in combining different materials and thought this would be a good chance to do so on a smaller scale.  

When I started brainstorming about what plants might lend themselves naturally to having embroidered elements, the milkweed plant was the first thing that popped into my head.  I could picture using either the real seeds or embroidery thread to depict the silk parachutes blowing in the wind.  So in October George and I went for a walk at Winton Woods dam to look for photo references. 

SKETCH

I ended up combining a couple of my photos in Photoshop to get the composition I wanted and then drew my sketch.  Below is a closeup of the first seed pod.

And here is the final sketch on tracing paper.

TRANSFER

The nice thing about using tracing paper is that you can flip it over and rub it with a credit card to transfer the image.  Below you can see the image transferred nicely onto the Safety-Kut plate.

CARVING

The carving is always my favorite part. I love my flexcut carving tools and am slowly getting to know my fancy "Sankaku To" Japanese v-gouge.   

I recently invested in a tabletop Ott light and it makes a world of difference.  Below you can see with light and without.

Once I am done carving the design I usually cut away the excess plate so it will not catch any ink and cause extraneous marks.  It is best not to cut too much away or the plate becomes too wonky and will stretch while burnishing.

This video shows the carving process and has a fun song, so turn on your volume!

(Music: "Yummy Yummy" by Lesfm from Pixabay)

TEARING PAPER

For this project I decided to try a new paper.  Instead of my usual Stonehenge paper I bought Nepalese Lotka paper.  In December 2022 I took a chine collé class at Tiger Lily Press and my teacher, Maureen George, showed us how to tear this type of paper using water.  In the video below I show this process.

In the end I did love the look of the deckle edge.  But I failed to press the paper well after tearing and every piece curled.  I still have a big stack of prints that I need to spray the back of and press.  So if you decide to go this route, be sure to press your paper plat before it dries! 

PRINTING

Lately I have found it is helpful to pick a color swatch from my Sherwin Williams fan deck or my giant box of paint swatches I have collected over the years.  This color then serves as a guide when I mix the ink.  It is best if I mix the color the day before printing, but it rarely happens.  I usually end up trying to mix the color the day of printing and spend at least the first hour trying to get the perfect color.  Then I begin to feel stressed because it has been over an hour and I haven't even printed yet!  This time was no different.  Below you can see my printing set up.

I love how the plate looks with wet ink on it.

I couldn't resist including this photo because it shows my two helpers.  George always jokes that we should have named the studio "Cat Hair Studio."

In the following video you can see the printing process from start to finish.

(Music: Inspiring Ambiance by Scott Holmes)

PRINT

I was very happy with how the print looked on the Nepalese Lotka paper.  I experimented with using both sides of the paper.  Most of the prints were on the smooth side, but there were probably a couple on the rough side.  I liked both, but the rougher side is harder to print as you have to burnish harder to make sure of an even print.  The print below was on the smooth side. 

Below is a closeup of the double pods.

SEED MATERIAL 

I haven't mentioned yet that part of my inspiration for this piece was randomly walking into a spinning demo by Pat Maley at the Weaver's Guild.  Pat was spinning cotton and showing people how to extract the cotton from the seed pod.  She also mentioned flax and showed different examples of the final threads you can get with both.  It got me thinking about perhaps using the real milkweed seeds in my piece, or maybe using flax thread. 

I collected seeds and pressed them for a couple months.  I even experimented with dipping them in liquid "YES" paste and then pressing them between wax paper.  That experiment failed when I realized the threads of the milkweed were too thin and the paper glued together.  Luckily I also pressed lots of them without the glue.  Below you can see them laid out onto the print.

I liked how they looked but realized the threads would not be as visible as I wanted... especially if I glued them flat.  Plus, at this point I was firming up the idea that the common "thread" woven into all the new work for the show would be "regular" embroidery thread. 

Also, as an extra bonus, I was starting to have an additional goal of weaving mystical elements into the pieces if possible. I originally bought the Virgin Mary beads for some little maple helicopter seeds I printed in my chine collé class.  I thought I would use them as the seed heads.  Instead, I ended up making two large maple helicopters so I put the beads aside.  When I let go of the idea of using real milkweed seeds I knew the Virgin Mary beads would work perfectly.  I didn't know how perfectly until I saw them side by side!  It felt like the universe had worked some pretty amazing magic!

SEED PLACEMENT

When I first envisioned this piece I thought I was going to have five seeds blowing away in the wind.  Below you can see my playing with that positioning.

I ended up lowering the number to three seeds.

SEWING

Part of what helped me make the decision to have three seeds was making a sample embroidered seed and then scanning the print and my sample into Photoshop.  It then became clear that three seeds was all I could fit.  It was also very helpful to print out my Photoshop mockup onto a transparency.  I then used it as a guide to make the holes before embroidering.   Below you can see the transparency with my hammer and awl.

Here you can see the print after hammering the holes and before sewing.

Below is a photo of my first sample seed.  I wasn't sure how it was going to go, but I did know that I wanted to attempt to have a slight curve on the lower threads.  I started by sewing the lowest holes first.  Then when I sewed the holes above it, I "grabbed" the lower thread.  I was hoping they would make more of a curve, but I think the effect was better than sewing straight lines from the middle to each hole.

FINAL PRINT

The best photo I have of the final print was taken on this plastic grid.  

FRAMED

Finding a frame that would accommodate three-dimensional objects was a bit of a task.  I finally ended up purchasing frames from Wayfair that had a nice built-in spacer.  I would never have known they had it from the description on the website, but luckily my neighbor had bought some and I saw them in person.  It is possible to add your own spacers, but sometimes the frame is not thick enough to fit the extra depth.  Weirdly, Wayfair accidentally sent me MANY extra frames...so I will be offering framed prints on the website.

SHOW

For the show at the Weaver's Guild I made a label for each print with pertinent information and a couple of quotes that I felt went with each piece. 
 

As most of you know if you read my post about the show, I have been especially drawn to Buddhism in recent years.  But I have never written much about my Catholic upbringing. If I had to choose one thing that resonated with me from my time going to church all those years, it would be the Virgin Mary.  I remember there was a statue of her at the front of the church.  I loved to look at it.  It was a statue of her in her blue robes with her arms down at her sides.  I thought she was beautiful and liked to think I could feel love emanating from her.  I didn't know it then, but the subject of the Divine Mother has come to fascinate me.  I love reading about the subject and all of her various forms.  

One of my original ideas for the show was to convey the idea that the miraculous is everywhere if we only have eyes to see it.  When I saw how real milkweed seeds all appear to be stamped with her form it made me ridiculously happy.  I love the idea that "All forms are the Mother."  If we can't find her in a plant called "milkweed" than I don't know where else to look.    

Expand the word, "Mother"

Let it emcompass the hills,

the morning,

that which feeds you.

Mother is much too big a word

for one person alone to hold.

Take it off her shoulders,

Hand it to community,

warm baths, anything that soothes and restores.

Healing is learning to know where to find The Mother

in her myriad forms

whenever you need her.

—Chelan Harkin, Susceptible to Light

The "Milkweed" print is now available at NessyPress.com.