More Gelli Printing

   Hi everyone. I hope you're having a nice weekend.

   Today I am joining Gillena for her Sunday Smiles and Nicole for her SITAR-Sunday in the Art Room. Last Sunday I shared some Gelli prints. (Here's the post if you missed it: Adventures in Gelli Printing.)  This past week  was another mostly quiet one so I spent an afternoon making a second round of prints. It was  wet and rainy that day so instead of going outside to get some leaves, I  used a variety of stencils. 

   This time I was very happy  with all my pages. No brown YUK like I had on a few pages last week. 😊   Here's a few of my favorites. This first one reminds me of a painting on a brick wall.

   My trick (OK technique 😉) is to never clean the plate. That way  when you pull a print you get bits and pieces from older prints  (I think they're called ghost prints) and spots of colors that were left underneath.  Plus don't use thick amounts of paint, so rolling with a brayer is a good idea.  These  prints are done on student grade watercolor paper, but I have printed on everything from  scrapbook paper, deli paper, cloth and even newsprint. 

 The check patterning this next print is from using the plastic roller I mentioned last week. It's meant to roll even lines in clay, but if I roll it  in both directions on my plate (vertical and horizontal) it creates this pattern.

    The other thing I really like to do is pull a plate, let the design on the paper dry a few minutes, and then repress it back onto the plate and pull it a second (or even third) time.

 I then switched up my stencil.

I switched it up again.

I thought the window shapes in these next few would be great for some Halloween journaling.

   I really liked how the alphabet stencil looked. And the  ghost like rings are made by using a small piece of left over pipe insulation that I dabbed in paint and then "stamped" onto the Gelli plate.

    And here's the final stencil I played with.  In this next image you can see bits of yellow that were just dried on the plate from a previous pull.

   That's all for me today. Have a super rest of your weekend and start to the new week.

Some Adventures in Gelli Printing

 Hi everyone. Hope you are having a nice weekend. Today I am off to a gender reveal get together. It's the first time I've ever been to one of these types of parties. More about that in some other post, but this party might mean I get a bit behind (once again) visiting blogs.

  Today I'm joining Nicole for her SITAR/Sunday in the Art Room and also Gillena for her Sunday Smiles.

  After several very busy days, finally in the middle of last week I had a couple of days to myself. 😊 I love having days to myself, but then again, I like to do things too. In the big scheme it's nice to have a bit of a balance. One thing that always gives me balance is having some art time. And one thing I've been wanting to do for a while is pull out my Gelli plate and do some mono printing.

   Since I had the day to myself, it was time play.

   It's been quite a while since I last printed. Maybe even close to a year. Not that anything was stopping me from doing it. Sometimes I just get into the swing of something, and I have to practically hit myself in the head 😏to move onto something different.

   It actually took me  several pulls to my technique back. I love to layer images over other images when I Gelli print. However, my first few pieces just ended up all brown muddy YUK. I must have forgotten how to layer I guess.  😉 However, no page, however a mess, is really a waste. I'll show you how I fixed those further down in this post. But first, here's a few prints that I like.

   I brought in a few squash leaves from the garden. I also pulled out a sunflower mask I had. Mostly I played with those items, as well as some ripped up paper and a couple of stencils.

   This next one is just color but I really like  how it came out. The fine lines are from a plastic roller I have that is striped. It's meant for working with clay, but it also works great with a Gelli plate.

   And now for the muddy brown ones. On these first 2, I used the sunflower mask and then I pulled out some bright paints which really popped off the mud. On the last one I managed to get some muddy brown textured sunflowers, and then I added the bright pink sunflowers.

    I can't say I'm 100% happy with the muddy brown ones, but they are growing on me. And at least, if I decide I don't want to use them as they are, I can cut them up and use bits and pieces. 

    That's all for me. I hope you have a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week. 

Friday Already

 Hi everyone. Happy Friday (again) to everyone. Today I am linking up to Nicole's Friday Face Off  and also to Gillena's Friday Lunch Break .

First I want to share some Gelli printing I did. I was inspired by Lin who shared some pieces for the last couple of weeks. Thank you Lin for  explaining how you made your prints. It was much appreciated.

These wild strawberry leaves were my favorite leaf to work with. Here's a few other better ones from the big stack I made.

And besides these Gelli-pints, a few weekends ago my husband and I went to an antique boat and car show. There were more boats than cars,  but here's a few cars and yours truly too. This first car  really fascinated me. It's an early limo. Look at the length of that hood. I can't imagine trying to park it.

I also wonder what the driver would do when it rained and/or snowed.  I'm guessing there must have been a top over the front also?

Here's me with a car I wouldn't mind zipping around in during a beautiful summer day. This is my Face for Friday Face Off.

And this last car made me smile because  when my grandmother learned to drive at age 53, she bought herself a Chevy Chevelle. Not this convertible version, and hers was red with a black interior. It was her only car ever, and she drove it for over 20 + years. Seeing these always makes me think of her. ❤

That's all for me today.  Have a super weekend ahead. 

Home on a Snow Day

Hi everyone.  It is snowing pretty good right now and looks like it might snow a good part of the day. We went from bare ground to white again- guessing it looks like we have about 10 inches (around 25 cm). Who knows when this snow stops how much we will have.

But to quote everyone around here, this is what we say about March snow. "At least it doesn't last long." Seeing the sun is higher and the days are longer. But of course long is rather a vague term and so as you can guess it could be here for a week or 2. Just not months. I hope. :)

I just went out and dumped a whole bunch of bird see on the top of the snow for the birds-poor things-I have a bunch of ground feeders out there looking sad and hungry, and 5 minutes later the husband comes along and snow blows all the seeds away. Guess I need to redo that all over again! (And I thought he was leaving for work.)

 Today I just have some random photos for you. With all this Gelli printing showing up online I spent a morning of my vacation last week making a stack of prints.

 I made marks and used stencils when I Gelli printed, as well as over printing a lot. I like to add several layers to may prints.

 I Gelli printed on deli wrap. I Gelli printed on the backs of old printed scrapbooking paper. I Gelli printed on the front of scrapbooking paper. I even Gelli printed on some sheets of watercolor paper.

You'll see some of these background soon I am sure.

And since I am sitting with no place I have to go, let me do a little book chatter too. I have been reading and listening up a storm as usual.

If you're not into books you might want to skip out here.

Here's a book that I picked up and read in short spurts. It's the stories of some of the colors we artsy folk are probably familiar with. It's more of reference style book, but the stories are interesting and fascinating to read, not completely technical. A little art, a little history, a little chemistry...

And I mentioned last book post that I was into mysteries and was reading book 1 of an Anasazi/archeology mystery, The Visitant. I enjoyed it so much I am onto book 2.

 I am really enjoying these authors and how they jump back and forth between the present and the past to connect the 2 stories of modern day archeologists and a past native American culture. I am learning a lot too because they have researched their topic (and even list sources in the back). 

 And I am listening to one of my favorite books ever, the Poisonwood Bible. Barbara Kingsolver is  really magical with her prose in this story, set in the early 1960's with an American Family who move to the Congo. It's our book club book for March, and I have wanted to reread it for quite some time. The woman who narrates this book from Audible has the most mesmerizing quality to her voice, which is really sucking me in even more than when I read it from a book the first time. I can say it is still one of my favorite books.

And back in early February I read this travel book by a Canadian author. He was teaching English in Japan and decided to hitchhike the length of the nation. This book is a comical story of this trip.  I wanted some light reading to get a little  familiar with Japan for when I travel there. I enjoyed this book although in some ways I kept waiting for him to get to the most northern island.

 And back in January I spent an afternoon next to the woodstove reading this drawing/travel style book. Vivian Swift has written 2 other books I really loved, "When travellers Cease to Roam" and  '"Le Road Trip" and even though this book was on my shelf for awhile I finally got around to reading it. 

I should have read it sooner.

 Usually in the winter I get such a craving for green. This book took care of that for a bit. I keep waiting for her to publish another book.

And finally, back in January I got back to and finished this book.

I started it last year before the kidney transplant surgery, and I put it aside because it was too big to bring to the hospital with me. Then for some reason I never picked it back up. Anyhow, it was a really enjoyable read and a very clever story. If you haven't read it and want something to sink into, this might be a good choice.

OK, I have taken up enough your time, and mine too. I should move onto to something like going into the studio. :) That sounds like an excellent idea.

Hope your day is sunny and bright, and CJ, I hope you have less snow than wee do.

I Gelli, Do You?

Hi everyone. Today I am writing about my Gelli printing techniques. A kind of tutorial from me.

This might be how you print, or maybe you have your own technique. Or maybe you've never printed. Anyhow, here's the BioArtGal  (Erika) method.

Since last weekend was pretty quiet and I had a bunch of time Saturday to play. I used some of that play time to make a bunch of Gelli prints. Besides my Gelli plate, I used my brayer, various stencils and and some soft bodied and "wet' acrylic paint. 

I love this Liquitex type of paint. Its just juicy enough without being too runny. I find for my style of printing I don't want paint too thick or too thin. Its got to move easily with the brayer, and not dry out too quickly. I like to pull at least 2 if not 3 prints per layer of paint I put down on the Gelli plate. You also don't want the paint too thick so it blurs and smears, but actually I'm not too fussy. I figure if I don't like a layer I just add another layer on top of it. 

I also always wait for a sale on the Liquitex paint because it isn't the cheapest, and when I need other colors that I don't have in the Liquitex,  I used some Martha Stewart and some other crafty paints I have. I do have some of those tubes of heavier Liquitex you can buy for around  $5.00 at some US big box craft stores, and those work fine too.

I don't always use stencils but last weekend I did. I love layering colors. Sometimes I blop down just one paint color, print with that, and then go back and add a second paint color and print that over the first. And often I add a third, or a 4th print layer too. I keep pulling print after print on a single piece of paper until I get to what I like. My other thought as I print is to be sure that I use contrasting  colors on each print layer that  as I  pull new layers so the different colored patterns and images stand out.

Sometimes I use multiple colors at once-as long as they are all hot or all cold so I don't make mud. I've got to remember and use the color wheel info at that point.

Sometimes I print on water color paper and sometimes on deli wrap paper. As long as the paper is able to handle the layers of paint, I might use it. Last weekend I used up some scrapbook paper I wasn't crazy about. I figured better to paint over it and make it pretty than to let it sit and take up space or just throw it out. I also use  old scrapbooking paper to work on like scratch paper or sometimes I stamp and cut out images from the white  backside of the paper. You can tell my parents were Depression era people because they taught me the rule was not to waste anything.

Anyhow, you can see the Christmas print on the right of this piece paper.

The lines and little checks on this print is from a roller I have. I believe it is a polymer  clay roller that you would roll through your clay to give it texture. Actually I have 2 of these rollers. One has rows of straight lines all along the roller and the other one looks like it is covered with rubber bands. Once I brayer the paint and lift the stencil I roll the roller over the wet paint if I want to add that texture.  I rolled this above piece in 2 directions to give it the check effect. Does that make sense?

 I've got to say this straight lined roller is one of my favorite tools.

One of my other favorite tools is this circle stencil from Ranger/ Dylusions.

I'm not very good at cleaning my stencils and this one has so many layers of paint I bet it is a lot thicker than it was when it was new.

I also really like to use white or black paint as a contrasting layer.

Lines and dots are very good in my world.

I recently bought the new Dylusions cherry stencil because I also have a thing for cherries. Nothing like dots and lines though.

I only wipe down my Gelli plate at the very end of my printing session. Even then its not very cleaned off. But it using the not so clean Gelli plate allows me to pick up bits of colors which only adds to the print in my mind.

This circle piece has picked up lots of layers and patterns. I don't even know what the under printed paper looked like any more. Which, by the way, is a good thing.

Here's most of my printed sheets spread out on some brown contractor paper. I don't know what this paper is called or even used for, but the hubby gave me a big roll he bought at the hardware store one Christmas. I like to unroll a big length on the floor and put my prints down on it to dry. 

So that's all the babbling you'll get from me today.
Hope you enjoyed the insight or at least enjoyed the post.

If anyone has any great Gelli printing suggestions or advice, I'd love to add it to my repertoire. :)

Hope its a great day in your neck of the world and thanks for stopping by.