I’m always happy to see a toad in the garden. They bring luck and eat slugs. Dandelions are often thought of as weeds, but they are cheery and robust, not to mention nutritious, and you can tell what time it is or make a wish by blowing the seed heads.
The design has a rotational symmetry of 6. 6 is a perfect number, being the sum of its proper divisors 1, 2 and 3. Each finished print will have 1, 2, 3 or 6 seeds applied using a hand-made stamp
I cut the block from Japanese vinyl using Flexcut tools. The paper is Japanese washi and I use Cranfield Caligo inks. The process is documented in my instagram post.
This is my second mandala design, and is inspired by Jennifer Zee’s work. From wikipedia:
A mandala (Sanskrit: मण्डल, romanized: maṇḍala, lit. ’circle’, [ˈmɐɳɖɐlɐ]) is a geometric configuration of symbols originating in Indian religions. In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space and as an aid to meditation and trance induction.
Printmakers love the reveal: the moment when you peel back the paper to see how your original design works as a print. A repeat print generates a sequence of reveals, and you get to see your design evolve into something quite new. Although the evolution was not planned, it is not random either. Truly a magical process: geometry rules!
Note: many of my friends love frogs and see frogs rather than toads in this design. I also love frogs, and if you see frogs that’s more than fine by me. It’s a stylized image, not a biological reference. The clues in the image which suggest “toad” are:
- the crawling motion
- no webbing on the feet
- the warty skin
- relatively shorter back legs: frogs hop and swim more and have large and powerful back legs
- the setting. Dandelions are not plants you see near ponds. Frogs are more aquatic than toads.