‘The Earth Laughs in Flowers’…

This week’s challenge was an actual quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson. We were asked to create a piece inspired by his words. We could either do the quote or create something around the earth and flowers. I decided to experiment with gel printing and lettering.

My first step was to create a gel print using teal and silver block ink. I utilized a flower stencil to create the flowers and a piece of styrofoam from the bottom of a meat tray to create the dots. I then colored the flowers a light green and cornflower blue, followed by smudging the pencil using a Copic Brush pen. The orange flower is a combination of metallic brush pens, glitter brush pens and calligraphy inks. The letters were written using a fountain pen with black ink.

The challenge in experimenting is you need to know how to be thoughtful and patient. I created three other versions which I didn’t like. I added too much or the colors didn’t jive. With this final version I knew when to say when. I was patient and let the flowers tell me when they were done. I had to let each stage dry before working on the next. Working in stages means you have to hope you don’t make a mistake because you will not be able to exactly duplicate your accomplishments to this point. One false move and you have to start all over, knowing it will never be the same.

This is way out of the box for me, and I liked it. I had fun just creating. It didn’t matter if it was perfect or suitable for framing, I was playing and learned more about laying inks and letters. I had to put aside the cost of the supplies and just use them until they ran out. I didn’t have a plan and there was lots of unfinished experiments when I was done. I may utilize them later or I may not, only time and my imagination will know where the remnants will take me.

This challenge is encouraging me to work differently each week. Instead of doing the same old, same old I am letting each prompt percolate until an idea ignites my imagination. I have a book where I am collecting the final works, so I can see the progression and the ideas come to life. Each Thursday there is a new prompt, so stay tuned to see what gets created for next week’s challenge…