blue when it moves

Have you ever noticed the way dragonflies, when they move really fast, seem to have this blue-like blurry colour hovering around their wings and bodies?

Or is that just my imagination running a bit wild?

The Japanese word for dragonfly is "tombo". The Japanese often refer to this lovely creature affectionately as "tombo-chan" - "chan" being a cute tag attached to a friend's or child's name. This print first started coming together about a year ago when I was studying gardening books and books about insects. I love all those lines that insects have. The prints itself is now its 3rd incarnation in the blue form. The others have been smaller and brown or grey in colour. I'm experimenting a bit with the layering of colour at the moment and made a print of this on a bigger sheet of paper with a larger brown tombo over the top. It looks better on thinner paper in the bigger version for some reason but this little one above turned out quite well on this lovely hand-made thick paper (above picture on left) from Japan (and, alas, not in stock any more according to my friend Miki in Japan this morning!).

of dragonflies and other critters

This set is one I printed a few months ago when I was a bit obsessed with joining lots of little printed pieces together to create one image. I like the way you get the feel of segments of nature rather than a whole joined image. When framed the effect is quite lovely especially when the float-mount technique is used rather than the traditional style of presenting an image bound by a matt. I leave spaces (half a cm) between each fragment when framing and this allows the pieces to 'breathe'. Just before I left Japan I became intrigued with float mounting prints. It lets you appreciate the paper more (and who doesn't want to admire the beautiful papers around now?) and pushes the print/s out to the viewer in the frame rather than hiding it behind a matt (which works for some prints but not all). Seed pods from Australian plant life have always mezmerised me with their compact nature. I love the 'life force' symbolism connected to seed pods too especially in Australia where a lot of pods don't open until there's been tremendous heat created by a bush fire. Dragonflies and other insects are fascinating because of their linear quality - something that

most printmakers

enjoy.