More printmaking!

Today I made another screen, a teeny little one, so that I could have more than one screen going at a time. It is kind of a waste of time to just have one screen and having to wait for the paint to dry each time I want to start a new print. I did the same thing as yesterday, where I took an old picture frame and stapled some screen fabric to it.

So this is today's print! It is a set of 5 cards.

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New (screen printed) Cards

New in my etsy shop! Since I'm on break I am kind of hanging out around the house and today I had this crazy idea to MAKE a screen. Both of my screens are currently at school locked in the screen printing studio so I have nothing to screen print with. Printing is kind of time-consuming with linoleum prints unless I want to reprint old prints.

So I found an old picture frame that I bought from Target for probably $2, took out the picture and glass, and stapled some screen material to it (I had some from undergrad that I used to make collograph prints). It wasn't as tight as the ones you buy at the store but it worked. I cut some contact paper into my usual pomegranate shapes and then did a monoprint with watercolors (you paint with watercolors on the screen, let it dry, and then reactivate it when you print it with transparent acrylic base).

Because it's a monoprint, each time I pulled a print it made degraded prints (called "ghost prints"), which is kind of cool. I included them in the set and reworked the cards with pen to make them look a little more finished. So you see, a set of three cards!

Also ... as a kind of secret ... so a few weeks ago I bought some plastic covers for the smaller cards that I make so that I can transport them and protect them while looking more professional. Unfortunately these cards that I printed on are larger than the bags I bought, but I made my own bag for them using a quart-sized ziploc bag. I cut the seal part off and cut the bag in such a way that it creates a perfect envelope that I will just tape closed.

AHHH I am really excited about it.... today I feel very resourceful.

The Wandering Jew & Friends

This is apparently the name for this plant. My supervisor gave me clippings of her wandering jew plant for a termination present (with this cool shiny pot). Apparently this is a cool hanging plant because it will grow long purple-and-green stripey vines if you let it. I planted this one yesterday, too. This plant also comes from my supervisor's grandmother's garden, and is currently hanging out with its other cousin on the north side of the bay window shelving area. (It's not really a bay window but there are three of them in a round-ish configuration and I don't know what to call it other than that)

I love purpley plants! I didn't realize that sometimes leaves would be other colors. So then when I went to the gardening store with a friend from class, I bought two more purpley plants.


This one is a succulent whose leaves kind of look like cabbage, frilly with purple edges. I thought it was very pretty. Also, it doesn't need full sunlight or much watering, so I thought it would do well on the south side of my little bay window shelf area.




I'm not sure what this plant is called ("Splash" ?) but it has green and purple splashed leaves. This one is with the succulent on the south side. They get plenty of sun but it indirect for most of the day.

I had a dream this morning that this splash plant shriveled up in the sun, so I moved it out of the sun and it started growing roots that took over the pot but no leaves ... just lots and lots of roots.

Thinking about all of these plants reminds me of the plants that showed up in my work the summer before I applied to graduate school. I was working at a pre-college program and investigating the effects the Jewish environment had on the visual artists in the program and was participating in many of the projects. One of the projects was to create an artist's book, which I never finished, but which had many pictures of leaves and plants woven into the ova-inspired blobs I was also making at that time. So... again... plants and fetuses. Also, remember the species projects I was working on in the fall.

Anyway, that is why I am planting things right now. I hope everything will last and I hope it will allow me to go further in depth with this plant work.

More Plants

These are my dill sprouts, I planted them yesterday. They are kind of flopped over because of the stress of planting but I think they will be upright again soon.




To the back of this picture (in front of the dill) are my two garlic sprouts, which I grew from soaking the cloves in water and then sticking them in dirt, and the thing sticking up in front is a green onion from the grocery store that I put in a cup of water until it grew roots and now it is in the ground.

JewishGal & the Bean Stalk

Remember these sprouts?

Well, now I have five of them, and I have wrapped them around a pole, and they are now living outside.


It's hard to believe that I just planted little sprouts on July 13 and now, two weeks later, they are these giant plants that took over my living room and had to be moved outside! I'm not sure how tall they will get ... I hope they don't get too tall!

Hiding in the green

One day at my internship we were making tape-and-foil flowers and my supervisor was having a bad day. She made a green plant head with big white sharp teeth and scary reaching arms. She stuck her plant monster in her plant in her office. So for a termination present I made a happy, kind of wild plant head also out of tape and foil. I took a picture of it in the plant that she gave me (which is actually a clipping from the plant in her office, which is originally a clipping from her grandmother's garden).

BREAK! (and a fly)

Oh man. I'm on break. FOR FIVE WEEKS!

I took this picture last Tuesday. The fly was totally vogue-ing for the camera.

Sad Google Poetry

SPROUTS!!!

This is my one sprout. I haven't given her a name yet. She is beautiful. I will keep taking pictures as she grows and as others pop out. I plucked her from the jar where she was sprouting and planted her in a starter pot to see if she survives the shock, and if she does I will plant her in a real pot.

This is another sprout I planted that I let pop up a little because she is also about to come out with some leaves:


Hello in there!

And this is what one of the sprouts looked like when I took him out of the jar, he was attached to his blankie so I let him have it in his pot. The roots are so beautiful.


For the record, these beans were from a dry cholent mix. I put them in a jar with a wet paper towel and set them in the sun with the other plants last Thursday night and now I have sprouts!

Benny the Bottom Dweller

This week in the art therapy groups we are making sea creatures. We couldn't come up with a good idea but I thought it would be great to do something beachy, maybe having to do with summer, and somehow we ended up with giant squids and other horrible creatures of the depth as inspiration for fantastic tape-and-foil creations. I can't take pictures of the children's work for ethical reasons but I can post my creation: Benny.



Benny lives on the bottom of the shallows of the ocean and on coral reefs, scurrying around trying to find dead plant matter and small bugs to nosh on. His back looks like coral so he blends in so larger fish won't come to eat him. Also, one of his eyes is bigger than the other (which you can't see in this pictures unfortunately). I did this because I am extremely self-conscious about how one of my eyes is slightly smaller than the other although most people never notice this, so I gave Benny the same thing to deal with on top of having to blend in to avoid being eaten.

Even though Benny tries to blend in with his surroundings, he is bright orange! So he only really fits in with one specific environment. Outside of the protective camouflage of the brightly colored rocks and coral, Benny is obvious and vulnerable.

I actually had time to make a full project this time because the kids were so well behaved and focused today. Today was the first day of summer camp and we see them at the end of the day, so they have spent the whole day running around and having a good time. It is such a big difference to see them now as opposed to after a day full of stressful school.

Anyway, welcome Benny to the internet!