Gelli printing, black and white

My friend Laura and I spent most of Saturday gelli printing. You don't have to twist my arm too hard to get me to gelli print.

Laura in action

 

I forgot to take pictures of any of her prints.
 
I had started a bunch of backgrounds previously to use with my new Denver skyline stencil.  I found the results pretty disappointing. The skyline looked a bit static and uninteresting. Often the print looked smudged, which doesn't work well for buildings. Also, the black wasn't a solid black, so the print just didn't look good to me.

Then I started playing with using textured papers and stencils to add pattern. I thought this was way more interesting and tried this with some other stencils as well.

And then I made a lot of prints.

I basically covered my plate with black paint and pressed textured papers and stencils into the paint (these stencils were not left on the plate, just used to add pattern into the black paint). Then, for the one shown below, I placed three circle stencils on the plate, and pulled a print. Then I removed the circle stencils and pulled a ghost print. 

The connected ovals are a custom handmade stencil. 

I had a great time with these. The last three were actually done on my 11" x 14" gelli plate so they are quite big. I think it is funny that whenever I have a specific idea for my gelli plate session, I often end up someplace else entirely.  I am thinking about adding color to these, but haven't made a decision yet.

Gelli print collaged deer head

I bought a paper mache deer head at Hobby Lobby in the spring. I have a farm/western themed bathroom and thought it would be fun.

I decided to collage gelli prints on it, because I have a ton of gelli prints. I gessoed it first, before collaging, since many of my prints are on translucent deli paper. I had no idea that collaging this would take so long. I got about halfway done back in May, then it got shoved in the closet for a while. I pulled it out a few weeks ago and got it finished. 

I love the flowers on his cheeks.

black and white gelli prints

Just because I started one project on Sunday, doesn't mean I won't work on a different one on Tuesday. I made a bunch of colored gelli prints for a project on Sunday, and yesterday I did a bunch of new prints that are black and white.

I got an instructional art DVD of Anne Bagby's, the link to it is here, and the first step is to make black and white patterned papers. Anne uses painted backgrounds, stamps, and stencils. I decided to use my gelli plate since it is so fast to make multiple prints. 

Black prints on white background.

White prints on a  black background.

Black prints on translucent deli paper.

White prints on translucent deli paper (I put them on a black piece of fabric so you can see the white paint on white translucent deli paper).

I cannot tell you how many unfinished projects I have, let's hope neither of these projects end up in the permanent UFO pile!

Gelli printing play

I have a project in mind that includes gelli prints, so I made some this weekend specifically for this project.  I hope to have some finished pieces to show next week, if this works like I want it to.

These prints are on deli paper or tissue paper.  The tissue paper I used was meant to be applied to walls to give a textured wrinkled look to them (which I bought cheap at the thrift store, it's probably from decades ago).  It seems a bit more sturdy than the average tissue paper, I didn't have a single tear.

I bought quite a few new stencils over Thanksgiving weekend, as I was visiting family in Greensboro, NC and Betty's has a great selection. There is a severe lack of cool art and craft supply stores in the vicinity of Kearney, so I go a bit overboard when I travel. I really like the giant flower stencil (left and right in the 2nd row), and it was on clearance for $3.50.  I wasn't too crazy about it when I bought it, but I love how it prints.

 More prints on deli and tissue paper.

 These prints are on interfacing. My plan is to layer some of them, free-motion sew them with cotton thread, then use a heat tool (embossing gun) to burn through some of the layers.  The colors are more subtle when printing on the interfacing. I should have probably used more paint. This interfacing is pretty thick and opaque. I really liked the thinner interfacing that I had printed previously, as you could somewhat see the underlayer through it. (That post is here).

I am looking forward to making progress on these and will post next week. I hope everything works out as expected!

Gelatin monoprint workshop

A few weeks ago, I did a gelatin printing workshop for Becca and Laura, and wanted to share some photos.

Here is our work table with lots of paints, papers, stencils, etc.

Here are some prints. I believe both of these are Laura's. These have two or three printed layers on them.

Becca, working on her final layer.

Laura, also working on her final layer

And here are some finished pieces.

Becca's

Laura's

 

 

It was a very snowy day, which makes for a great art day, and we had a great time! I am so glad they were able to make it through the snow and play with monoprinting. Thanks Laura and Becca!

Chicken monoprints

 This weekend I worked on some chicken monoprints with my new stencils.

I have some more with the background and main body printed, and I just need to do the detail stencil print.

12" x 14" gelli prints, cranes

Using the larger 12" x 14" gelli plate, I printed some larger crane images. This first one is definitely my favorite.

I think using red on the crane makes it look more like a flamingo than a crane. They are still pretty awesome.

This background is  hot pink and orange, it looks even more vibrant in person.

Crane gelli prints

I am still working on a series based on Sandhill cranes, using gelli prints.  Since I have been needing a lot of detailed stencils recently, I bought a ScanNCut. I have really enjoyed using it to cut my stencils, but it definitely required some patience figuring some things out, as there is not much in the way of instructions that come with it. I definitely watched a lot of YouTube videos before I even took it out of the box.

I must say that I love my new crane stencil and it has way more detail than I could have gotten by cutting by hand.

The other nice thing about the ScanNCut, is that it saves the file and I can re-size it. All these prints were done on the 8"x 10" gelli plate, but I also had the ScanNCut cut a bigger stencil to use on the 12" x 14" gelli plate.

I worked on a deer stencil too, that I am looking forward to testing out.  I had made one a few days ago, but it just didn't look quite right, so I cut new version.  If I had cut the first one by hand, I would have been much more disappointed that it wasn't good enough.  Having the ScanNCut made it easy to revise my sketch and have it cut a new one.  It's so nice how much easier it is to have the ScanNCut cut it, instead of dreading hand-cutting it myself.

Crane monoprints

The last couple weeks I have been working on crane monoprints.  I made a bunch of background papers in a few colorways, then printed the cranes.

I made a new stencil of flying cranes. 

I am going to do some other prints of a crane close up, similar to my cow prints. For those, I have to do another layer adding more color and detail to the crane shape, then do the black detail stencil.