Briny Blue - Ran's many moods

 

Three Stages of Briny Blue I  mixed media ©2025LisaLeQuelenec 

WIPs in one post don't give any idea of the time lapse in the making of them but here we are. So many ideas and pieces are flowing at the moment and I feel like I am running to catching up with myself. Both of these started as prints, then added watercolour and into acrylic. Lots of small layers and adjustments, tweeks here and there, backwards and forwardsing. 

Both pieces are available in my Folksy store.  There will be more to come...

Briny Blue I   mixed media   ©2025LisaLeQuelenec

Three Stages of Briny Blue II   mixed media ©2025LisaLeQuelenec

  Briny Blue II  mixed media ©2025LisaLeQuelenec

mixed media ©2025LisaLeQuelenec

Below the Brine - Ran's many moods

Below the Brine I   print and mixed media 20x21cm   ©2025LisaLeQuelenec

The ambiguity of the Ran myth intrigues me still. I am attracted to the relatable human quality of her moods...calm, playful, stern, raging... not many female characters are able to be more than one thing in mythology that I have read about - women are either good or evil, victims or villains, virgins or seducers - Ran could be any or all of these. I wonder if the oral tradition of these myths were still alive if her character would be more black and white or just as ambiguous. My hope would be the ambiguous - like the ocean able to change in a heartbeat - how much more interesting and realistic.

Three calmer and possibly more playful moods in Below the Brine but the net is still there glinting and dazzling, waiting, biding its time or with the potential to change?... 

Below the Brine II in three stages   print and mixed media 20x21cm   ©2025LisaLeQuelenec

Below the Brine III   print and mixed media 20x21cm   ©2025LisaLeQuelenec

Deeply Darkly I & II - Ran's many moods

 

Deeply Darkly   print and mixed media 20x21cm    ©2025LisaLeQuelenec

Further explorations into Ran's many moods. I am enjoying the linear elements in the compositions which I think give an added chaotic energy and tension. What do you think?

These pieces are available at Folksy and Etsy.

Deeply Darkly II   print and mixed media 20x21cm    ©2025LisaLeQuelenec

Collections of pebbles and hag stones in monoprint

 

Collection I   collagraph monoprint   29x19cm   ©2022LisaLeQuelenec

I have been experimenting and exploring again this time the shapes and textures in pebbles gathered locally. They are a geological history of this part of the coast whose history fascinates me. I often wonder at how different it must have looked with the Isle of Wight's Needles still joined to Old Harry Rocks and where was it exactly that the sea breached and eroded to form the two iconic landmarks that gives us the beach we enjoy today. Was it where Poole harbour is? Being the second largest natural harbour in the world could make it a possibility...or did that come later as the water found the lowest point to pool in and wash away the softer land? These are things that I ponder as I walk along the beach picking up pebbles and looking through the hag stones that have been pushed around by the tide. How much of this history has this pebble seen? Or this one?

Collection II   collagraph monoprint   29x19cm   ©2022LisaLeQuelenec

My experiments have taken the form of collagraph making individual plates of each stone, choosing textures to describe each pebble individually and then intuitively placing them to print in different combinations. It has the element of chance and surprise for me that echoes the way that I gather the pebbles they have been inspired by. The process is long as each pebble plate is inked separately again echoing the process that formed the rock.

Hagstones ©LisaLeQuelenec

Colours are taken directly from the source material but are also reflected back at me on my walks as the lack of rain and very hot, dry weather are parching the land. I haven't known the river to be so low, even at high tide it doesn't look the same. We have warnings along the coast to be mindful that the heat may produce cliff falls - the process continues to shape the land just as it did to shape the pebbles in my hand.

Needles - Isle of Wight   23x20cm   ghost print and mixed media   ©2022LisaLeQuelenec

Tradition says that the fairy folk can be seen through a hag stone but I have only spied a 'polar bear' ;o)  Have you seen the Wight bear?

All of the above prints are available in my Folksy Store.

Flowing to the sea - mixed media

Flowing to the sea   27.5x27.5cm collagraph and mixed media   ©2022LisaLeQuelenec

This is an older piece that I found when having a studio tidy that somehow didn't make it into the shop. It reminds me of recent frosty walks down by the river. It has been cold but sunny and with such beautiful muted colours.

I've popped it into my Etsy store, here's a link.

Night Parade - moon and groynes collagraph

 

 

                                Night Parade   collagraph 10.5x23cm   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec
 

 

 

Last print for the year....I think...before the big unwind for the holidays. I am looking forward to it. A chance to process the last years work and make plans for the next year.

Best wishes to all for a happy holidays and a happy, healthy and creative new year. 

 

Available in my Folksy store.

Surge II - another big wave collagraph

 

Surge II   Collagraph 14x14cm   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

 

 

Another big wave collagraph in a varied edition of 6. I am experimenting between high and low key prints... more ink...less ink... strong colour more muted. So many variables to try, I guess it's the printmaking equivelent of taking a line for a walk. Whatever it is I am enjoying it immensely.

Surge II   Collagraph 14x14cm   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

and then using one over inked print I re ran it through the press with another sheet of paper on top and made a monoprint - the same but reversed.

Big wave  monoprint 14x14cm   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

I also like the plate at the end of the printing session and may frame that as an image in its own right....

Surge II   printing plate cardboard and mixed media 14x14cm   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

Prints available in my Folksy store.

 

Can't stop the tide - collagraph print

 

 

Can't stop the Tide   collagraph 14x14cm   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

 

As well as lots of reference material of the groynes at Bournemouth beach being replaced I have hundreds of photos of waves crashing and splashing into them. I can obsessively stand clicking away trying to get the perfect shot of spray as it flies back from collision, the perfect light as it catches the water in shimmering flashes of colour.

 

Where previous images I have made about the groynes along the beach have been calmer in atmosphere I wanted to make something that in a small way captures that exciting, elemental energy, the sea battling against the solidity of the wood. So another collagraph, with obscured shapes of the groynes as the sea pounds against it's side, raging at the obstruction that shields the shore. I think whilst I obsess at taking photographs to try to capture the moment I could soon obsess about capturing the perfect moment in print too. This may well turn into a series of it's own.......

Sentries I & II - collagraph prints

 

 

Sketchbook pages ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

 

You cannot come to Bournemouth beach and fail to miss the groynes that march down the sand into the sea from Poole to Hengistbury Head there are 50-odd of them all protecting the beach from being washed away from the tide. They are part of the beach furniture here as much as sand and gulls. They are in sketchbook upon sketchbook of beach doodles I have filled since I moved here more than twenty years ago - so familiar are they that after a while they become easy to overlook.

It is a constant job for the Council to replace them which they do in sections working year on year. As a tot my son spent many a happy afternoon, from a safe distance, watching the diggers, dump trucks and cranes as they got to work removing and replacing. Once work is finished for the day and the light has become a little more exciting there were opportunities for some interesting sketching and photographing for me. I found the shadows fascinating.

Groynes at Bournemouth ©22021LisaLeQuelenec

 

 

 

They have inspired a few series of work being rather convienent ways of introducing verticals in otherwise horizontal seascapes. A large series that kind of morphs every now and then to pop it's head up is one that I think of as 'Stripes on the Shoreline' - fairly recently in monoprints which you can read about here before that in a set of 28 small mixed media collages. It has surfaced again briefly in a collagraph with some rather unexpected results...

 

I made two collagraph plates using some cardboard as a base and added acrylic mediums and carborundum powder. I incised lines first using a biro then overworking with a blade being careful not to cut all the way through - I wanted an element of drypoint to the prints. Finally they were finished with a dilute layer of acrylic medium to seal them.

Below on the left is one of the prints taken by inking up the plate in the usual fashion. The carborundum holds copious amounts of ink and is difficult to wipe making holes very quickly in the scrim I use to wipe the plate. As there was so much ink on the print and on a whim remembering Henry Tonks* I ran the print through the press again but this time with a piece of clean damp paper covering it. The result, on the right, is a second print in reverse which whilst very different in mood to the original I also thought was a pleasing image.

 

Sentries   collagraph 14x20.5cm   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

 

The process didn't work consistantly each time and I have some interesting misprints that I will use for further explorations and sketchbook work but there are three prints and three 'tonks' are available as an edition of Sentries and Sentries II and are available both on Folksy and Etsy.

 

 

Sentries II   collagraph 14x20.5cm   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

 

*Henry Tonks - 1862 - 1937 a teacher at the Slade School of Art who used to press newsprint on to sections of paintings to remove excessive oil paint from the surface so as to be able to continue to work without having to wait so long for it to dry. The method is known as 'tonking'

Transitions collagraphs

 

Transitions I - V  collagraphs xcm ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

 

I love this time of year when the light mellows from summer to autumn. Mornings of mist and earlier evenings, colours change subtley at first and all the summer green retreats to gold and bronze. This is the time of the harvest moon, still time to pick the last berries from the hedgerows before the late autumn storms that will arrive. We have had so little rain here now for weeks, the fields where I walk have looked parched for a while and the ground is so hard. For now I will enjoy the autumn sun and look forward to the storms that will eventually come. The wild weather that churns the sea and throws pockets full of treasure to the shore for a different kind of hunting and gathering.

 

All five prints are available in my Folksy store here.

Transition I collagraph 16x24cm ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

Transition II collagraph 16x24cm ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

Transition III collagraph 16x24cm ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

Transition IV collagraph 16x24cm ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

Transition V collagraph 16x24cm ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

Details Transitions I - V collagraphs 16x24cm ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

Sea Breeze - collagraph print triptych

 

 I'm not sure what is happening with Blogger at the moment. I thought I had posted this last week but it seems it just saved into drafts. Also I can't seem to post comments!?! Maybe it's me, I'm finding the newish format a bit difficult. Has anyone else had any problems? 

Sea Breeze II   collagraph 14.5cmx14.5cm   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

 

A new set of collagraphs inspires by watching kite surfers one evening. I started to think about how I could represent the sea breeze that so many people were having fun playing in. I could have watched them for hours whizzing along jumping and twisting as the sun was going down. It was both exhilarating and peaceful at the same time.

I started with some grey board and used acrylic medium, carborundum grit and aluminium tape to make shapes before inscribing into the board to make some intaglio marks. Just for an experiment I cut away some pieces of the base board to make gaps within the picture frame too. I haven't done this before but may again in the future. Below are the plates ready to be inked after they had been sealed in acrylic medium.

 

Cardboard collagraph plates for Sea Breeze I, II and III ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

 

I inked them up in a mixture of intaglio (getting ink within the indentations) and relief ( a different colour rolled over the raised surfaces) techniques. I printed a set of five from each plate and all of them are quite different in variations.

Sea Breeze I, II & III collagraph varied edition ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

Sea Breeze I, II & III collagraph varied edition ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

Below are the plates with their patina of inks - a history of colour and process.

Collagraph plates for Sea Breeze I, II & III  ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

Sea Breeze   collagraph 10.5x14.5cm varied edition   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

 

I will have some prints from each edition in my Folksy and Etsy stores.

Best wishes for a creative week. 

Limpets in varied edition collagraph prints

 

Limpets   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

 

 

At home in Jersey, I still call it home despite not having lived there for more than 25 years, limpet shells are very common due to the rocky coastline that is their habitat. In Bournemouth a lack of rockpools means that I don't see them washed up on the beaches. When I go back to visit I usually find a few have worked their way into my pockets. I'm not sure if it is because I am missing home (I'm wondering when it will feel safe to travel - I am cautious by nature) or because the broken shells that fascinate me remind me so much of the hag stones that I do find here in Bournemouth but I have been drawn to draw them. (See what I did there.)

 

Limpet shells and the collagraph plate that they inspired   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

 

 

After sketching out a few plans in my sketchbook I decided to make a collagraph plate, I had just had an order delivered that had some fine carborundum grit in it amongst other things and was eager to test it out. Using mountboard as a plate, acrylic medium as an adhesive, the grit and some grout/tile adhesive I set to work. I'm not sure if in shows very well in the photo but once the plate was dry I scratched into it with a drypoint needle to add more linear elements.

Below are four of the prints in the small edition all inked up differently to each other.

Ensemble  (4 of the prints in a varied edition of 6)  collagraph   9.5x9.5cm   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

I couldn't resist making some more plates below is another of them with the resulting prints. I have put some of the prints for sale in my Folksy  store.

Limpets shells and collagraph plate   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

Stacked   varied edition collagraph   8x13cm    ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

At the end of all of this printing, I looked again at the plates. I kind of think they could be framed in their own right. I like looking at the worn down textures (worn by the press rather than by the sea) and the history of ink colour that has sunk into the grooves and the plate.

Collagraph plates and limpet shells   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

More ammonites in drypoint and collagraph

 

Fossil Three   drypoint 7.8x15cm   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

 

 

Fossil Three   drypoint 7.8x15cm   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

Back to a favourite subject here...ammonites - well I do live on the Dorset coast. This time in collagraph and again in drypoint. Prints from both editions are available in my Folksy Store.

Just a Trace   collagraph 16x22.5cm   ©2021LisaLeQuelenec

I'm chasing my tail again this week with looming deadlines and I'm hoping to catch up with everyones blogs with a nice strong cuppa soon. Wish me luck.

Start of the storm collagraph and mixed media

Ironically after days of storms I am posting this new piece whilst the sun is shining - a brief respite before the rains return. Whilst the sky is clear it is bitterly cold. My thoughts have been with the folk in the north of the country who have been flooded out of their homes and are awaiting the next round. I hope everyone stays safe, warm and dry.

With so much wild weather there has been a lot of sketching to try and capture the moments of contrasting cloud patterns and light. I have turned to collagraph experiments adding pencil on top of some of the deeper embossed textures once the ink has dried.

The start of the storm   collagraph monoprint and mixed media 19x14.5cm   ©2018LisaLeQuelenec

Arriving storm - drypoint with collagraph

We have had some spectacular weather the past week or so...lashing rain, howling wind, there have also been some breathtakingly beautiful sunsets. I love Autumn and all its changeability, I am looking forward to seeing the changing colours. It won't be long now I think.

The storms have been quite something and have been prompting some new work.

Storm at Sea   14x14cm drypoint with collagraph monoprint   ©2019LisaLe Quelenec

A mixture of techniques have been used to make this print - there are areas of drypoint and collagraph and due to the disintegration of the plate in the sky area each time it travelled through the press, each print has altered and arrives at the other side appearing quite different. I like the idea of the plate physically eroding like the coastline it is depicting in the storm.

This print is available at Seaside Studios UK.

Cloud monoprints and mixed media - an experiment with technique

In the clouds   foil covered plate on the left and monoprint with mixed media on the right 12x12cm   ©2019LisaLeQuelenec

Finally the ink was dry enough to take some photos and move onto the next stage..... Above are some results of a fun mornings experiment. I was short on time and needed to be inventive as I had run out of acrylic medium. I had had an idea and was desperate to get something down on paper but without the medium to seal a plate I needed a work around in my approach.

I had read a while back about a technique called foliography where by you lay down leaves, grasses and organic matter onto a plate and cover in tin foil before inking up and running through the press. I think the idea is that the foil adds strength to the delicacies of the plate and by not varnishing it you aren't adding any accidental brush marks that could detract from subtle veining etc in the plant matter. I wondered if this idea would work for me and thought I would give it a go.

Using a 12x12cm piece of greyboard I 'drew' a quick design with a hot glue gun. The glue dries very quickly and so I could quickly move to the next stage of covering the whole plate with some tin foil. (The one I had was quite a thick one, I think the thin stuff would tear a bit too easily.) Carefully as I wrapped the foil onto the design I was burnishing it into the recesses of the plate and smoothing out any little wrinkles that could hold ink where I didn't want them.

Glue gun design on mountboard (detail) ©LisaLeQuelenec

On the left is a close up detail of another plate I have waiting in the wings to be experimented with.  This one is on a scrap of mountboard so you can compare, I hope, the  difference in depth between the board and the glue. The plate I used for this experiment had some areas that were very thick like this one.




Then I inked up the plate with a brush and wiped with a rag, taking out highlights and sometimes adding a bit more ink here and there. Now to run it through the press (using dampened paper) .... It worked pretty well and I managed to get 5 prints before the glue started to move around and tin foil began to wrinkle under the pressure of the press.

So not a great technique if you wanted to make an edition but for very small sets or for monoprinting and generating ideas I think it has its merits. Speed of plate making being the most useful - I can see with a bit more playing how this could be useful to do in a workshop situation when you are always working against the clock.

One of the things I particularly liked about using the glue gun to make the image was the variety of mark that could be made manipulating the glue and the very deep emboss that could be achieved. This is definitely something that I will utilise again. I wish I had had the forethought to make an impression without any ink at the start - I have made a mental note for next time.

In the clouds   monoprint and mixed media 12x12cm   ©2019LisaLeQuelenec

The ink on the prints took the usual ten days to dry so I impatiently waited to work back into them with colour pencil. After seeing the depth of the emboss I knew this was something I wouldn't be able to resist. It also meant that I could carry on experimenting and exaggerating the tonal and colour differences that began in the inking process. I now have more ideas to develop at a later date maybe in print or paint - I will let them percolate a while before deciding.

We have had some spectacular rainstorms the last couple of days and are forecast the same for the rest of the week. I was caught out yesterday walking the dog in rain so heavy that I couldn't see for a few minutes. It was really quite extreme. Watching the build up of cloud and the changing light before hand was quite dramatic as were the flooded roads on the way home. The rest of the day was pretty much blue skies and sunshine. more clouds to ponder....