05 September 2013

Honey Bee Visions - Frutilaria

Frutilaria

HONEY BEE VISIONS - FRITTILARIA
White line reduction woodblock print
5" x 7" (12.7 x 17.8 cm) image on Echizen Kozo paper
edition: 15

This is the second white line grid print I’ve made (see the first one here) and I think I’m getting better at it. I’m calling these “Honey Bee Visions” because this is somewhat the way that a bee, with its compound eyes, would see a flower. Artist/scientist Andy Giger has a page on his web site called B-EYE that shows more accurately how a honey bee sees (more elongated than the prints I'm making).

Here are a few more photos taken at various stages:

Frut1

Frut2

FrutilariaDrying

7 comments:

Curt said...

I was wondering yesterday when you were gonna write more about your compound-eye prints. It's always interesting to see how other people work and think.

On a fine point, the genus is Fritillaria, an interesting choice since the petals are already 'gridded'.

Annie B said...

Thanks for the spelling correction. I'll make that in the post. I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly, but I think it was the gridded pattern in my fritillaria photo that led me to the idea of doing the grid prints.

itsuko K said...

I also saw the first grid print and I like both of them.
Very interesting to reproduce in your work how a bee sees a flower.

Annie B said...

Thank you Itsuko san. Your work sometimes has a sort of "pixelated" quality too, but not as hard and geometric as this. Your way of painting reminds me more of how light appears when the sun shines on dew drops. So beautiful.

Elizabeth Busey said...

I'm enjoying your exploration of this new theme. I'm assuming you sometimes have to ink individual squares. How do you keep track of where you are in the grid?

Your latest print allows my brain to enjoy the soft, varied colors of the Frittilaria without immediately saying "that's a flower." I always think making your viewer do a bit of the work is a great idea.

Annie B said...

Hi Elizabeth. I have a master on my computer, a photo with a grid over it, and I literally count the squares up and down so I know where I am. I make markings on the block as I go, too, so I know where to put the colors when selectively inking. A little tedious at times :)

Coreopsis said...

What an interesting process. I never would have thought of that, but you're getting some beautiful images. It will be interesting to see where these go....