Full Moon (August 2025)

The eighth set of variations are based on the full moon on the ninth August. This moon is known as the Grain Moon (by the Celts) or the Lynx Moon (by the Anglo-Saxons) according to Leendertz (2024, p.171).

Its also known as the Sturgeon Moon, the green corn moon or the grain moon. The reddish hue in the summer haze also leads it being called the red moon. The Cree refer to it as the Flying Up Moon, because it appears at a time when young birds are ready to fly (The Old Farmer’s Almanac, 2025).

This time I focused on red as a theme of my experiments and I made nine small TetraPak plates incorporating some of the markmaking from earlier plates inspired by the Hiroshige exhibition that I visited (see July’s post).

I printed them roughly altogether in deep red ink, wiping some gently and some more fully. I then chose some that seemed more successful to re-use and discarded others.

I also used some trial plates that I’d made following the Hiroshige exhibition to explore the use of lines and linear marks on the plates.

In the following two examples I printed the red plates first and then the indigo plates on top. The overlapping was unplanned so the registration was often off and the effects were random. Having said this its a good way of finding elements to retain and use purposefully in future.

This final print was a ghost print made by running the plates through the press again without inking up. I like the subtlety of these although thet would be hard to reproduce consistently.

References:

Leendertz, L. (2024) The Almanac. A Seasonal Guide to 2025. London: Octopus.

The Old Farmer’s Alamanac. (2025) Full Moon Names for 2025. web page. [online] Available from: https://www.almanac.com/full-moon-names [ Accessed 25/8/2025].