When I first started printing shrimp I used a fair bit of paper experimenting with composition. Yes, I should have worked it out in thumbnail sketches first, but I was anxious to play with the little guys. Then suddenly the composition came to me. Sea monkeys!
If you grew up in the 1960's as I did, you may well be familiar with the ads for sea monkeys that every child begged their parents to buy for them. The whole 'sea monkey' issue is revealed in a 1974 CBC Archive. It starts at about 6:10 minutes into the video.
Now I don't have a fish bowl full of brine shrimp that I'm using, but they gave me an idea for the composition with their promotion of constant antics. In my shrimp gyotaku I've created my version of 'sea monkeys' tumbling down the length of the page in shades of phtalo blue and violet red.
These are printed using Caligo water soluble oil based inks on Okawara paper. I'll let the ink dry for a couple of days before adding the eyes, then the print is ready for wet mounting and framing.
4 comments:
really like your colour choice :)
hmmm i always wondered how you trained a sea monkey
I remember those things. Never had any and my marine biologist husband told me what they were so no surprise (of course, I never thought they were monkeys but, heck, if you believe in sea dragons and sea horses, why not sea monkeys? ha ha)
Hahaaa--clever, and these sea monkeys are real beauties, Jeanette!
Thanks Jennifer, the violet red just sort of evolved as I didn't bother to wash off the shrimp that had the phtalo blue on it.
It was a good marketing ploy RHonda and obviously worked for many as lots of kids had them.
Funny little things aren't they Sue?
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