#printersolstice2425

Inspired by Song Dynasty Chinese painting this is my linocut portrait of Geng Xiansheng outlined in black on ivory paper, seated at a table with alchemical furnace, vessels cups by a building and bamboo plants covered in snow. She has a flower in her hair and wears a green robe. The vessels are red, and blue. The bamboo is green with black. The roof of the building lintel has a red stripe below a pattern of blue and green.

Mercury, final prompt for #printerSolstice2425, made me think of #alchemy. It is an element the alchemists favoured & felt was fundamental in their efforts to transmute base into precious metals, both in western & Chinese alchemy (from whence western alchemy emerged).🧪🐡👩🏻‍🔬 #histsci #printmaking 🧵

My linocut portrait of geologist Florence Bascom as a young woman from neck up, in blue, looking at the viewer with her curly hair pulled back wearing a blouse with large lace collar on green vinyl. Behind her are two geological cross-sections with layers carved with different patterns to indicate different rock materials in black. Below on either side are two circular diagrams: these are thin sections of rhyolite printed in pale beige, brown, and black.

For the #printerSolstice2425 prompt silicon my #linocut of brilliant trailblazing US #geologist & prof Florence Bascom (1862-1945) 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬⚒️ #histsci who championed women’s education, & used polarizing microscopes for detailed petrographic analysis to show that rocks previously identified as sedimentary🧵

4 carved lino blocks on top of cutting mats. The largest is a portrait of geologist Florence Bascom as a young woman from neck up, looking at the viewer with her curly hair pulled back wearing a blouse with large lace collar on green vinyl. Behind her are two geological cross-sections with layers carved with different patterns to indicate different rock materials. Below on either side are two circular diagrams: these are thin sections with the patterns of the darkest ares carved. The three other Lino blocks are circular with patterns carved to print the other mineral colours in the thin sections.

Since silicon is a common element in the crust, for the #printersolstice2425 prompt silicon I’m making a portrait of trailblazing geologist Florence Bascom (1862-1945), complete with geological cross sections and thin sections from her publications. 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬⚒️ #histsci

One of the nice things in 🧵

As described: linocut print of four radiolarians of the of the spyroidea family on handmade Japanese celadon-grey paper, 8” x 8” (20.3 cm x 20.3 cm) printed in dark plum ink. Their mineral skeletons are various shapes and sizes include bulbous forms with many holes and spiky bits.

The last of my older prints which would fit #printerSolstice2425 prompt silicon: 4 radiolarians of the of the spyroidea family on handmade Japanese paper. 🐡🧪🔬 Radiolarians (or radiolaria) are a type of tiny creature -amoeboid protozoa - which produce silica mineral skeletons.

Silicon Print With Crystal, Quartz and Radiolarians, Periodic Table Lino Block Print Chemical Element Silicon - Etsy Australia This Wood & Linocut Prints item by minouette has 33 favourites from Etsy shoppers. Dispatched from Canada. Listed on 31 Jan, 2025

So here’s another existing print which fits the #printerSolstice2425 prompt silicon. Later this week, I will share a newly created silicon themed print!

minouette.etsy.com/listing/1749...

My mini linocut with quartz crystals and word “Quartz” in script in slate grey. Some of the facets of the crystals are printed onto collaged iridescent translucent paper so they have a pink to pale blue sheen.

The next prompt from #printerSolstice2425 is silicon and as a geophysicist I am always going to think of SiO2, quartz, one of my favourites and the first mineral I printed in this older #linocut. 🐡🧪 Quartz was the first mineral I learned to identify as a child. Rhapsodizing about the averageness 🧵

My linocut portrait of Marie Meurdrac in her laboratory is printed on 11” x 14” white Japanese paper in a gradient of dark blue at the bottom to gold at the top. A 17th century lady in a dress with hair piled on top of her head is leaning on a table with head resting on one hand as she reads a book. She is surrounded by tools of her trade like vessels of various shapes, scales and has shelves of jars with alchemical symbols on them. There is text, carved in reverse with elongated s’s with a quotation, ‘Les Esprits n’ont point de sexe’ (or minds have no sexe… that is, one’s sex is irrelevant to the ability to think and learn). There are medicinal plants (rosemary and tansy) hanging above her. In the furnace are flames, tongs and crucible.

For the #printerSolstice2425 prompt sodium, my #linocut of Marie Meudrac (c. 1610-1680), a woman in science right at the transition between alchemy & chemistry. 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬 #histsci Born to a land-owning family, she moved to the Château de Grosbois after marrying, where she became good friends with 🧵

My half carved green vinyl Lino block on a cutting mat with small u gauge with wood handle. The block is carved in reverse with 17th century lady in a dress leaning on a table with head resting on one hand as she reads a book. She is surrounded by tools of her trade like vessels of various shapes, scales and has shelves of jars with alchemical symbols on them. There is text, carved in reverse with elongated s’s with a quotation, ‘Les Esprits n’ont point de sexe’ (or minds have no sexe… that is, one’s sex is irrelevant to the ability to think and learn).

The next prompt for #printerSolstice2425 is sodium, which had me thinking of salt. 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬 #histsci To the alchemists (following Paracelsus) matter was made of various concentrations of 3 elements: salt, mercury & sulphur. So, for my next print I am working on a portrait of an alchemist who worked right

As described this is my lino block print of the beautiful green mineral malachite. Each print is made from three blocks in three shades of green on Japanese kozo or mulberry paper 8” by 8” (20.3 cm by 20.3 cm). When this opaque, green-banded mineral crystallizes in stalagmitic masses, it results in concentric rings of varying green bands. This sample is a bulbous irregular shape cut in cross-section so you can see the concentric rings of various parts of circular shapes squashed together in varying series of pale minty green, bright grass green and dark khaki green. The word “Malachite” in script appears below the mineral.

Here’s an older print which would also have been a match for the #printerSolstice2425 prompt copper: my lino block print of the beautiful green mineral malachite. 🧪🐡⚒️ Malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral, with the formula Cu2CO3(OH)2. This mineral has been mined for thousands of years.🧵

My linocut horseshoe crab is hand printed on 8” x 8” cream coloured Japanese paper speckled with some tiny brown bark inclusions. The crab is viewed from above and its body is printed with a base of grey, with some darker gold-green especially around the edges to give the impression it is a bit domed and then texture, edges, hairs around the edge of the horseshoe shape and the tail are printed in dark brown.

For the #printerSolstice2425 prompt copper, I made a #linocut horseshoe crab (Tachypeus gigas) in grey, blue-bronze and dark brown on 8" x 8" cream-coloured Japanese paper with bark inclusions. 🧪🐡 They get their name from their horseshoe like shape but they are not crabs; they are chelicerates, 🧵

Four 8”x8” linocut prints on cream coloured washi paper with some speckles (bark inclusions) are drying on a tabletop covered with cutting mats. The two on the right are in the first stage, a grey irregular almost circular shape separated into three parts at the top. The two prints on the left are in the second state. On top of the grey area is a greenish gold colour covering much but not all of the grey. The grey peeks through especially in the centre. The lines between the colours are very organic.

Working on my next #printerSolstice2425 print for the prompt copper. First two layers are down on this #linocut. Recognize this #invertebrate ?

#printmaking

My 8” x 8” Lino block print ‘Nixie Tubes’ on Japanese paper shows 4 Nixie tubes in a row spelling ‘Neon’. Each glass tube is printed in silver and looks like a cylinder with a top like an onion dome. Inside the tubes you can see some hardware for holding the anode and cathodes shaped to produce alphanumeric characters. On top of this is a reddish orange rectangle, a black honeycomb mesh anode and shadow round the base of the tubes and in bright pale orange the letters N, e, o, and n on the series of tubes.

For #printerSolstice2425 prompt neon I made a lino block print of four Nixie tubes spelling the word “Neon” on lovely Japanese paper. 🐡🧪

Nixie tubes , also known as or cold cathode display, are electronic devices used for displaying letters or numerals or other information using glow discharge. 🧵

My collection of 10 drying 11” x 14” prints on a tabletop. Each print is on ivory washi paper and printed with a narrow band of colour along one side (which will be the bottom) with a rainbow spectrum of violet on the left to red on the right.

5 of my prints are laid out drying on a tabletop, now in their third state. In addition to the thin band along (what will be) the bottom with a left to right rainbow spectrum of violet through to red, just above that in the middle is a semicircular shape with radiating spikes printed in a radial gradient of yellow in the centre out to red. Also, around what is currently an unprinted silhouette of a short haired woman from the chest up, facing forward. Is a background in black like space with carved stars and galaxies. The prints are awaiting their final layer with my portrait of Burbidge, lined and labels within the semicircle of supergiant star and stellar absorption lines along the spectrum at the bottom.

Making my #linocut portraits of #astrophysicist Margaret Burbidge (1919-2020) for #PrinterSolstice2425 prompt: iron! 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬🔭🎢 #histsci It’s about how most of you and I are stardust, made of elements built in stars through stellar nucleosynthesis. Supergiant stars build elements up to iron through 🧵

A green vinyl block as I begin carving. There’s an outline of a short haired woman in a short sleeve button down shirt, from shoulders up,looking forward at the viewer. Along the base there’s a strip with sporadic vertical stripes (which will be a stellar absorption spectrum). In the lower middle above the spectrum there a collection of nested semicircular lines.

Working on my next #linocut for #printersolstice2425 🐡🧪👩🏼‍🔬🎢🔭 #histsci - last week we talked about how some numbers of nucleons (neutrons & protons) are “magic” so sometimes if you add another the binding energy is lower than the last, so the resulting nuclei are more common & stable. 🧵

My linocut portrait of Maria Goeppert Mayer on 11” x 14” white Japanese paper shows the nuclear shell model energy states in lime green up the left side. Next to this are the magic numbers rising vertically (sums of available energy states): 2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82, 126 and associated elements for nuclei with those numbers of protons: He, O, Ca, Ni, Sn, Pb with the final hypothetical element unlabelled, all in dark blue. A 3/4 portrait from the chest up in dark blue is all the right side. Mayer has short hair, and wears a dark blouse with long thin white scarf draped around her neck, untied. Below the magic numbers are increasingly large representations of nuclei with increasing numbers of gold and white nucleons like clumps of balls.

For the #PrinterSolstice2425 prompt lead, the woman who figured out why lead is particularly stable & 2nd woman to win the Nobel Prize for #physics: German-American theoretical physicist Maria Goeppert Mayer (1906-1972). 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬🎢 #histsci As the series of increasingly large atomic nuclei grows with 🧵

Two green vinyl Lino blocks in progress but mostly carved. On top there’s a narrow one with 3 nuclei which each look like a collection of differing numbers of balls, some carved some not. This is on top of a block with Maria Goeppert Mayer, here as a young, short haired woman with dark shirt and long carved scarf with 3/4 profile and at the edge there’s a bit of a group of numbers and lines.

I chose chemists (& 1 palaeontologist) for the 1st several elements of #printersolstice2425 but the next 2 will be about nuclear physics! 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬 #histsci Working on a #linocut portrait for the prompt lead. Maria Goeppert Mayer (1906-1972) #physicist and Nobel laureate who explained why certain nuclei 🧵

Oh, definitely! You should join us. You can look at #printersolstice2425 especially on Instagram to see what other printmakers have made.

That is wonderful.
What is the #printerSolstice2425 prompt?

My Lino block portrait progress is mostly carved and shows a young Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin in cobalt blue from chest up in a blouse tied with a bow. Her ball-and-stick molecular model for penicillin appears over her shoulder (with atoms in red, pink, pale blue, dark blue and black) and her blouse has a specific repeating pattern of circles and nested broken circles like a labyrinth on bronze circles within a hexagonal while area on a pink background. Overlapping her hair is her model of vitamin B12 complete with electron density contour lines and 3 Angstrom scale bar from one of her papers.

Animals need cobalt for our metabolism; we get it as vitamin B12. So, for #printerSolstice2425 prompt cobalt I made a #linocut of English chemist & x-ray crystallographer Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin (née Crowfoot, 1910-1994), 🧪👩🏼‍🔬🐡 #histsci who won the Nobel Prize in #chemistry for her models of 🧵

My Lino block (green vinyl) in progress is mostly carved and shows a young Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin from chest up in reverse in a blouse tied with a bow. Her ball-and-stick molecular model for penicillin appears over her shoulder and her blouse has a specific repeating pattern of circles and nested broken circles like a labyrinth.

Working on my next print for #printersolstice2425 prompt cobalt. 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬 #histsci All animals need cobalt for metabolism, though ultratrace element in us. We need it as cobalamin aka vitamin B12. So I’m working on scientist portrait: x-ray crystallographer & chemist Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910-1994)

My linocut portrait of Zofia Keilan-Jaworowska shows her as in slacks and sleeveless button down with collar turned in a 3/4 view with her right arm extended and left arm bent and resting on the small of her back. She has short hair and appears brightly lit from the left side. In front of her are the Fighting Dinosaurs fossils: a protoceratops and velociraptor entwined. Above her hand is a Cretaceous rodent Catopsbaatar and behind her is a Deinocheirus dinosaur. She is in the field in Mongolia with mountains in the distance. The print is made in a gradient of sandy golden green through dark green-brown through a dark rust from the bottom to the top.

For #printersolstice2425 prompt calcium, my #linocut of Zofia Keilan-Jaworowska (1925-2015) 🐡🧪👩🏼‍🔬⚒️ #histsci a Polish #paleobiologist, famous for a series of Polish-Mongolian expeditions she lead from 1963-1971 to the Gobi desert, where she discovered dinosaurs including the Deinocheirus & her team 🧵

Detail of my green vinyl Lino block being carved showing a protoceratops fossil next to a standing person and part of a velociraptor fossil. The woman’s torso and one extended arm is visible. Her hand remains uncarved but above it is a rodent.

My full green vinyl Lino block with carving in progress. A woman in slacks and sleeveless button down with collar is turned in a 3/4 view with her left side arm extended and right side arm bent and resting on the small of her back. She has short hair and appears brightly lit from one side. In front of her are the Fighting Dinosaurs fossils: a protoceratops and velociraptor entwined. Above her as-of-yet-uncarved hand is a rodent and behind that is a deinocheirus dinosaur.

The next #printersolstice2425 prompt is Calcium, so I’m thinking bones, fossils and palaeontology. My block in progress.

Any guesses who I am portraying next?

#linocut #printmaking #sciart #histsci #womenInSTEM #paleaontology