In the Forest (2022)

Green Akua ink and black ink on paper

I bought a cheap 75 sheet sketchbook with the intention to fill every page with a mono print. I went around my yard, surrounding trails, multiple stores, and even the potted plants outside of my work to collect different leaves and flowers. I wanted to experiment with the idea of composition and how the reveals of every print would have different contrasts and different ways it would be harmonious.

Created to match the poem "Sleeping in the Forest" by Mary Oliver. This is one of my favorite poems and I love the descriptions of nature, I thought that this was a good way to incorporate my style and usage of plants within nature. I stamped the first four lines on 4 of my monoprints.

I have picked the few that I think came out the best to represent the work that I have done for this series, shown is the blocked and the revealed mate.

Sleeping in the Forest (1)

The first line of the poem stamped to say, "I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly,"

Created with peach tree leaves, leather leaf ferns, baby's breath flowers, and white clover flowers.

Sleeping in the forest (2)

The second line of the poem stamped to say, "Arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds"

Created with asparagus ferns, baby's breath flowers, and white clover flowers.

Sleeping in the Forest (3)

The third line of the poem stamped to say, "I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed."

Created with baby's breath, and fishing net.

Sleeping in the forest (4)

The fouth line of the poem stamped to say, "Nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees."

Created with leather leaf ferns.

Vulnerability

Created with a tore fishing net.

Leather Leaves

Created with leather leaf ferns.

Buttercups & Spores

Created with buttercup flowers, baby's breath flowers, and leather leaf ferns.

(You can see the pollen that mixed with the akua ink!)

Focus

Created with Boston fern leaves, and leather leaf ferns.

Sun

Created with Boston fern leaves, and leather leaf ferns.

Spiral

Created with asparagus ferns, baby's breath flowers, and white clover flowers.

Shown above: Process of creating monoprints, Focus, and Sun.

Pink + White

Based on Frank Ocean's lyrics from his song Pink + White, "If you could die and come back to life, up for air from the swimming pool, you'd kneel down to the dry land kiss the earth that birthed you"

Created with Boston fern leaves.