SANTORINI

In June 2014 my friend, Elaine and I went on a yoga retreat with Shiva Rea, to Santorini for 9 days.
We stayed at the Hotel Atherio in Oia and what an experience we had!

Oia, Santorini

We did yoga in the mornings and the evenings and then had the day to go exploring the gorgeous blue mediterranean beaches and sea. Swimming was amazing because of the higher salt content of the water and I was astounded at the steep drop-off, a metre or two from the shore and it would be very deep under your feet with beautiful multi-coloured little fish darting around.To reach the swim place, just around the bend from Ammoudi Bay, we walked down hundreds of steps with donkeys  taking people up and down.

Ammoudi Bay 

...and so in the tradition of my pop-up printing studios, I had to do a fish-print to mark the occasion! I had come prepared with a cardboard roll of small sheets, ink, thread and a towel. I had to actually buy a fish which I had never done before and we had a laugh in the restaurant right on the water's edge,

when I went up to the glass counter where the freshest fish were on ice, chose my fish and then asked the waiter NOT to clean and cook it. Then back to the hotel with my little Red snapper.

The hotel room/pop-up studio

For the first time I also decided to try colour with the prints just as a reminder of the gorgeous colours of the red snapper and the island of Santorini.

My only regret was that i did'nt have more paper to print the octopus!

GIA'  HARA' SANTORINI!!

WINTER FISHING TRIP

So late in May, James, Simon and I hit the road on an awesome winter fishing trip with the aim of making pop-up studios to print all along the way. Well that was my mission, they were just into the fishing! Our first stop was Koensrust Sea Farm just outside Vermaaklikheid, near Puntjie, on the southern cape coast.

 Not for the faint-hearted! We stayed right on the ocean and the weather was pretty hectic, luckily we could make a fire every night and I caught my first "'Dassie" Blacktail.  (Diplodus sargus) The fish with the blue eye is locally called a "Jan Bruin" (Gymnocrotaphus curvidens) I was thinking of using a bit of colour in the eye of the print of this one.
Then we travelled up the coast past Cintza towards the wild coast and the old Transkei.By now the water is a lot warmer, no longer the cold Benguela influence but the warm Mozambique current with a whole lot of new species for printing. We headed past Port St. John's to Msikaba and a friends house with crazy sculptures in the garden.

 The bronze bream  (Pachymetopon grande),was the first specie of the day and after that the guys caught Kob (Argyrosomus hololepidotus), Queenfish  (Scomberoides commersonianus), Yellow-belly rock-cod (Epinephelus guaza), River snapper (Lutjanus argentimaculatus). There were some that were also released such as Stone bream (Neoscorpis lithophilus) and a Cave Bass (Dinoperca petersi). An awesome 4 days of wild coast fishing!

THE PRINTS

Cape stumpnose

OCTOPUSES

 This was a great learning curve, doing creatures that are at the same time so long but also so delicate. The detail on each of the suckers is incredible and when they print it looks like little flowers. The most interesting thing is that it seems that close to the "neck"of the creature, there is a blotch of ink that is darker and more purple than the ink I use, leading me to believe that it was a little of the octopus'own ink.

Angelfish or Atlantic Pomfret

It's winter and the weather has been too miserable to go fishing so I tried a frozen fish from our local food market. It worked really well and was delicious too. I had ordered a whole lot of really lovely hand-made Japanese papers and found that the kiruku koro, usu kuchi light and gozen really work well. They are all unsized and a natural colour. The shoji screen paper (70% kozo, 30% wood pulp) is very strong and flexible when wet, probably good for very large fish. This angelfish was just over 30 cm. The Latin name is Brama brama.

With the multiple prints I have started to play around with two prints ontop of eachother with the bottom print showing through faintly, giving the impression of fish further away.