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

Free Up Your Sketchbook

It took me a while to decide whether or not to sign up for Karen Stamper's Free Up Your Sketchbook and Grow.  I have done classes with her before both online and in-person.  You might have see my Venice book or the start of a canal one.  I don't think I ever blogged about the finished book.

So I wasn't sure whether Free Up Your Sketchbook was relevant three or four years on.  I've done so much more textile work in the meantime and I wondered how this course could help me. But in the end I decided to go with it.

Here are my week 1 pages using pencil, inks, gesso and other media.

The idea is to work back into these pages as the course continues over the next 5 weeks.  I'll keep you updated.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Collage and a poem

Continuing with Visual Narratives I started playing with the photos I had printed out which I mentioned in my last post.

I cut up a sheet that I had intended to be a zine to make snapshots of marks.  I put them into my sketchbook.

Then I tried making collages with  the different surfaces - paper, tracing paper and ohp film.

They're not totally me.

I had also printed one page of photos onto address labels. I peeled some of them off and put them in my book.

I also took words I had found and wrote them on the page using ink and then added water.

These sentences are part of a poem I wrote about canals using the phrases and words I had found in the book Canals: The Making of a Nation by Liz McIvor

The Cut
I was once a stark man-made corridor
Cut by sweaty, swearing navvies.
Now a ribbon of calm, spiralling out from the centre of the city.
Cutting lines through scarred landscapes
And meandering through verdant countryside.
Iron bridges tower over me
Looped lines from shadow lattice patterns
Fall on my surface
Disturbed by ripples from coots and moorhens
As they scurry into my reeded banks.

 
Thanks for joining me today
Bernice