I loved the seaweed from Carlsbad, beautiful spirals of green and black so I took some home and did some painted monotypes of it.
Seaweed monotypes
They started to look like the beginnings of a typeface to me so I took a quick search on google and lo and behold, there are many seaweed typefaces! Seaweed Fire is great.
Once again I set up by the Philip's camper by the shore. They were kind enough to store my press inside for the night so it wouldn't get rusty, and give me a choice shady spot for a really sunny day. It was amazing to just hear the surf and feel the breeze. As printmakers we are often in enclosed shops with our large heavy equipment so this "plein air" printing was a treat.
The morning swim's haul.
LIve, dying, and dead seaweed.
Pam printing.
Phili and Pam with their prints.
More prints of the day. They ended up looking a lot like cyanotypes. We were inspired by the blue of the sea I guess!
Inspired by the wonderful Drive By Press, who travel around the country with an etching press in the back of a truck printing woodblock prints on tee shirts, I decided to take my little press on the road south for a few days to Carlsbad while visiting my friends that are camping here. In the regular vein of my work, I was interested to record the mark of the natural world around me while traveling through it. You can't get a better studio view than this!
My picnic table printing set up and seaweed from my morning swim.
Kelp ( I think ) ready to print.
Rolling up the kelp with some ink.
Ready to run through the press.
The final image. I like how it looks like some ancient viking helmet.
Sandy pulling some prints while lunch is served. Just goes to show you- you don't need a lot of space!
Paul pulling a sand print.
The sand plate. Looks good against the light too.
After printing we went back to our hotel. The heaviest item in the room helped to flatten the prints nicely.
Prints of the session.