Still Working...

on this piece, which I talked about here ;

Today, though, I decided to work on the piece of board that I'd used as the base of the monoprint that colours it.

I should say that the dark blue isn't quite as strong as it seems in this image...but hey... it's a photo...
I decided to use it on as a warm-up piece today, when I went out to paint.  And here's the end result:

So... how did I get from there to here?  I started by spraying the piece with Lemon Brusho, deliberately varying the strength in some areas.  I don't like flat colour; I think it's boring.  Varying the colour makes it much more interesting to look at, and helps the eye to travel round the image.  While it was drying, I wiped off as much of the yellow as I could from the little circles, smudging it into the shapes, turning them into a lovely blue green shade.

But it wasn't enough.  The obvious thing to do, given my current work, was to print over the top of it.  I might have contemplated another monoprint, but  it seemed a bit predictable.  Instead, I took a look at a collagraph I made last weekend.  I tried it out on a piece of scrap cloth, in green; here it is...

I liked the way that it worked, so decided to try it on the monoprint; it worked very nicely.  And that, I thought, was that...  but nothing is ever that simple.  I had made an earlier trial print of the collagraph, in a reddish brown colour, but it was not particularly successful.  When I printed on the monoprint, some of the red brown colour was transferred.  I found it catching my eye.  And so, finally, I added some random dots of red and green paint to the piece.  I was surprised how well it worked; it seemed to pull the whole piece together.

Now, all I have to do is finish the textile piece... it's coming together slowly.  I think I have an idea...