A gel plate printing experiment

Gel plate printing is so very addictive.  I saw a fabulous reel on IG from @inkslinger_gypsy using things in much the same way as I have used plastic and metal bits on screens for breakdown printing.  You don't leave the bits on the gel plate - you use them to remove paint.

I used Payne's Grey and Copper and pressed nuts, washers, plastic canvas, embossed wallpaper and other things into the paint.  I had put far too much paint onto the plate that I was able to ink up a sceond plate and remove paint in the same way.  These plates were still too wet so I took prints.

First plate print

Second plate print

 I left the paint to dry on the plates and then added a layer of turquoise, peach pink and white.  Yet again there was too much paint so I took some of the paint off with the roller and rolled it onto paper.

This 'print' is where I cleaned the bits I'd removed paint with and then cleaned my roller over the top.

I had put paper onto the last layer of wet paint and left it to dry.  In fact came and edited my photos above and wrote this blogpost as far as here whilst waiting. And then had to use the heat gun.

These prints are okay and will be fine to tear up and use for collage.

However I shall probably have another try at some point.  I will use less paint and mix it on the paint tray better.  I'll use tweezers to pick up the washers as my fingers marked the paint.  I'll leave it to dry longer as you can see where the paper tore because the paint was still wet.  I will also take more time.  I was so concerned that the paint on the plate would dry before I'd peeled off the metal bits that I really rushed and there was obviously no need.

More experimenting to come.  Printing on fabric through the  inkjet printer.

And I'm going to try printing onto bondaweb both directly and through the printer.  Watch this space!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Can you cope with more gel prints?

I do try to limit not just my palette but how many prints I do in a session.  But it is SO addictive!

Here are some more from yesterday.

This is the gelli plate with paint left over from a previous print.

These next two are the prints on deli paper to clean up the gel plates I had been using.

All of these prints remind me of all the photos I have of decay like this one.  Although obviously not the same colours.

 

And this is what my workspace looked like when I'd finished!

 

I have started a couple of sketchbooks using the gel prints.  Come back on Saturday to find out more.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Gel plate sessions

Continuing with the gel plate theme I chose a limited palette - you might recognise it.  I played with a stencil and a piece of plastic mat which has squiggly lines.

Interestingly I had the gel plate in a landscape position (which is unusual for me) but when it came to taking the photos, apart from the one above, I put the prints in portrait!

I had printed all the above on on mixed media paper.  The next few are on Deli paper or copy paper.

This was one of the prints I did with transparent paints - leaving each layer to dry - and then putting gel medium on top to pull the last layer.  I thought I had left it on to long so it tore - leaving paper on the gel plate.  But actually I hadn't left it long enough.

I printed back over the top to cover up all the white.

And these are with turquoise paint and just a bit too bright.  However these prints will be useful to add pops of colour on collages.

 Guess what I did next!  I cut up the prints made on mixed media paper to make concertina books. This one folds up to 10cms square.

This is a slightly smaller one and folds up to 10x8cms

I'm now in the thinking phase.  Should I stitch into it?  Should I collage other papers onto the pages?  Should I collage and stitch?

I'll let you know the outcome.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Colour Wheels

I am doing a Sally Hirst course called Monotype & More.  Yes I know!  Don't go on.  I have too many courses all running at the same time.

One of the first exercises was to make a colour wheel by puttin paint onto a gel plate and pulling the print.  I have done a fair bit of colour theory but I have never mixed the paint on the gel plate.  Some of the colours were a bit hit and missbut still show the range.

This wheel is made with cool colours - Pyrrole Red, Nickel Titian Yellow and Coeruleum Hue.

This wheel is made from warm primaries - Primary Magenta, Primary Yellow and Primary Cyan.

There's two of each colour because I printed on Deli paper and copy paper to see if the surface of the paper made any difference to the colour.  It didn't!

After this I had a play with stencils and my favourite colours.

I'll share my results in a separate post.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Art Cloth Day 2

Last week was day 2 of the Art Cloth workshop at Littleheath Barn.  I blogged about Day 1 here.   In between these days I did some monoprinting and added the papers to my sketchbook.

When we arrived for day 2 our screens were waiting for us to do the breakdown printing.  My screen looked like this with the bubblewrap still on it.

I peeled off the bubblewrap ready for action.

 I used manutex print paste through the screen onto the fabric.

By the time I had done several prints on fabric and on pages of my sketchbook the screen looked like this.

 We moved on to using masking tape as a mask on the screen.

I used Robin's Egg Blue thickened dye through the screen, printing over the same piece of fabric, sometimes turning the screen the other way round.

My sketchbook pages from the screen printing.

This has become a rather long post with lots of photos, so I am going to stop here and continue in another post on Saturday.

Thanks for joining me today.

Bernice