Oh my word!

On Wednesday, around 10.15am, I was sat in my pyjamas and dressing gown, text messaging with a friend about how I was struggling with returning to the Visual Narratives workshop.  At the same time I was playing with canal photos in Snapseed.

Nothing wrong with that you might say.  And rightly so.  Except that at 10.25 (still in PJs & dressing gown) I realised I was supposed to be in a Write Poetry workshop on Zoom which started at 10am!

I zoomed in with camera switched off and whilst people were writing their first poem, I nipped off and put a top on and combed my hair!  Phew!

Camera on I entered the fray!

Sara-Jane talks about a poem and then sets an exercise to write our own.  I missed the first exercise as I said.  It was based on the poem: The Laughing Receptionist in the GP's Surgery by Paul Durcan

The second poem was Up-Hill by Christina Rossetti.  We were asked to write a poem where we were trying to work out a conundrum or problem, using two voices.  I was so not in the zone due to my late arrival and bothered about not being dressed properly etc.  I had no idea what to write.  However I did write this:

A Poetic Conundrum 

What shall I write?
I don’t want to appear a fool.
Just start. Do not fight
The pen is just a tool. 

A pencil is much better
I can erase the ill-place word.
The words are only letters
Keep going, undeterred. 

What shall I write?
I cannot think of words to bring.
Lead your thoughts to the light
And let your words take wing. 

The next poem was The Laugh by Michael Laskey.  For this we were asked to write about a human expression or reaction including something unexpected.  Here's mine:

Tears

A kind word,
a word of encouragement,
well-meant and well received,
provoked a depth of feeling,
an unthought-of release
of past hurts and criticism. 

Not harsh words,
but words full of kindness,
that destroyed the chains
that bound the hurts
of the past and released
unexpected tears.

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

Yet more gel prints

Well, actually two prints!

I went out and bought some transparent acrylic paint.  The colours are far too strong for me so I was thrilled to find the Liquitex Transparent Mixing White paint.  White paint is usually opaque so when you mix it with transparent paint the colour becomes opaque.

I tried out mixing the white with the colours to see if it genuinely didn't make the colours opaque.

Then I did layers of the tramsparent paint  - leaving each layer to dry before the next layer.  The next two photos show the layers on the gel plate from either side, whilst holding the plate so the light sone through.

 

 

And this is what the plate looked like before I put the opaque white paint layer to be able to pull the print.

I have two gel plates so I worked on the two at the same time with the same colours and same stencils.  As before the next two photos show the layers on the gel plate from either side, whilst holding the plate so the light sone through.

The back of the plate is dirty and that show through as well!!!!

Here's the last transparent layer.  Because I rarely clean my palette there's a lot of dried-on acrylic paint which caused some really great texture on my roller.

Here are the two prints I pulled.  One from each plate.

The colours are not as pastel as I would like but there you go!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice