#originalprintcollage

Four prompts set by @MollyLemonArt a wood engraver and instagrammer - famous for her intricately detailed prints. Take a look at the hashtag on Insta to see all the amazing images that were created https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/originalprintcollage/

These are my responses to Molly's challenge...

Prompt 1: HOME

First thing to do - get to grips with the collage process - I had a rough idea of what I wanted to create - but as I looked through myr old test prints and rejects, I had to adapt to the materials available to work with. This image is a view from my living room window - Cirencester Church became the decking, Virtual Coffee Time became the pond and a pot, the greenhouse is from Greenhouse Stroke Shed, Big Red and Ginkgo are roughly in their right place... The rest is a mish mash of succulents and marigolds...oh and a slightly wrong colour Darwin the cat of course. #gardenview #bifolddoors #cirencesterhome

Prompt 2: PATTERN

Next up, Pattern - I find these flat but not-flat geometric squares quite fascinating, so here was a good reason to try it out. I cut loads of little shapes, there needed to be three distinct colours and not too many distracting lines to make it work. #geomentripattern #cubes #2d3d

Prompt 3: MINIATURE

I'm not really a 'Miniature' kind of person - normally quite big and bold - so had to answer this prompt in a slightly 'lateral thinking' kind of way. We'd bought some whisky miniatures for a Burns Night tipple - (couldn't get actual Scotch) and I wanted to see if I could do lettering - giving my scalpel skills a bit of a workout! #mackmyrawhisky #swedishwhisky #miniature

Prompt 4: WATER

I didn't really have any blue or potentially watery reject prints to cut up, so I decided the background can be the water. I went for a walk along the canal from Stonehouse to Stroud a few weeks ago, it was such a bright and calm day the reflections were amazing. These houses are made up - I converted them from Cirencester Churches. To get a true reflection I had to swap over some of the doors and windows - then sliced up the bottom half to suggest rippled water. #stroudwatercanal #bluesky #reflections

Here are a few more images of the work in progress and the inspirations...

It was fun to push myself and try a new technique. In some ways answering the prompts reminded me of my time working as an Art Director - coming up with interesting ways of communicating a thought and deciding how best to execute it visually. Also a good way of using up rejected prints that I couldn't quite bring myself to throw away.