Balloons

This is my first artwork of 2012. I wanted to continue the series of prints with collaged papers, like the 'Unicorn amongst umbrellas' and the sailing ships, and I had the idea of hot air balloons. So, I sought out images, paricularly of vintage balloons in the late 18th and early 19th century. Some of the pioneers like the Montgolfier brothers, built the most spectacular and astounding vehicles. I love that they deemed it necessary to produce elaborately decorated balloons. Many of the early ones had sails and baskets shaped like ships, in order to sail the skies.



I inked my lino block in a gradient of colours to produce the 'key' print of he sky at sunset on Japanese kozo (or mulberry paper) approximately 12 inches by 13 inches (30.5 cm by 33 cm). I printed the balloons within the block on variety of Japanese washi paper (kozo, chiyogami and katazome-shi patterned paper) and vintage sheet music, and collaged them. I am making a series of these multimedia; each one is unique. This is first in the series.