Pin Cherry and Sky

drawing for pin cherry and sky

 Years ago, when my neighbor was having a new garage built; I found a small  pin cherry tree  that was a volunteer along my fence line. I planted it and it stands in my back yard today.  I loved the way that the leaves, stems and small fruit look against the summer sky, I decided to make a print with the image. Playing with photo shop - I composed the image, eliminating the many of the branches that so intrigued me. Then I made a drawing that would fit into a 10 x 20 inch vertical frame.

reduction print
on black paper

I started by making a reduction print of the image.  - I had printed two onto black Stonehenge paper as well as 18 on white Stonehenge. I sort of liked the way that it looked, but after I had printed it, I realized that it needed some sort of background. I cleaned the screen and placed one of the prints, in register, under the screen and started to do a background for it.

before transparent pink

 I decided to add vertical lines that would emulate the cut lines of a wood block. I painted each line with screen drawing fluid, spread filler over all, washed out the drawing fluid and printed a light blue with  Speedball Textile Screen Printing Ink.
I sort of liked it - but I wasn't really happy with it. Just last week, I had an idea, I would print process magenta with a lot of transparent base over the whole print. That brought the print to life. The delicate lavender sky was just what it needed and it toned down the rest of the print, I was happy with it - but then I took another step and printed a very transparent process blue. I stopped after I had printed the transparent blue  over nine of the prints.
 It wasn't what I had expected - the transparent blue dulled the print - the nine that I had printed with blue will be Pin Cherry and Sky II - a different print.

with transparent blue-
Pin Cherry and Sky II

detail with transparent pink -
click on the images for a larger photo