Gyotaku: Part V

R is for Red starfish...collage by MaryMPayne

So by now you may have figured out that this is not what one considers art.  There is always a question in my mind about what  the difference is between art and illustration.

Someone said that art is the idea brought to life while illustration is a depiction or explanation of an idea.  Is it any clearer to you now?  No, nor to me either. 

   I think in this case, the parameters of the assignment make this project "illustration".   And I have begun to think of these pages as old fashioned posters that could be used as tools for teaching children.... a sort of book without a cover...a starting point for discussion.

This red starfish with the skinny limbs is the echinoderm ,classe Asteroidea found in our Mediterranean Sea, the sea that is ten minutes walk from my house.

For now, I will say that I constructed the red "sea fern" by selecting a section of a larger  stiff foam piece made by "art foamies.com".  I used only one part of the square "stamp" so it would have the appearance of a frond.   "Foamies"  are a new tool for informal printmaking. 

The blue background piece was pulled from my "gelli-plate " with which I use acrylics with a "retarder" so that the paint doesn't dry too fast.

The red starfish is printed on bristol and glued onto a piece of 300 gram Canson paper.  Here is the series so far:

First four pages of series,  MaryMPayne