Artist Get Together - Printmaking

I hosted a morning of mark making, paint mixing and playing with texture with a couple of artist friends.  They were in town for an art show set up later this afternoon.

The 2 ladies MS & DM arrived at 9:30 am and the space was all ready to play with paint, paper, and texture.

Of course, the coffee was on.

The tools and supplies were out.  Craft table, work space mats, acrylic paint, water spray bottle, rubbing alcohol and rags for clean up.

Tools were brushes, collagraph plates, rubber stamps, brayer, stencils, and gelli plates.

Texture -The first was playing with texture and the ladies had brought collagraph plates.  Paint was applied with brushes then a damp piece paper was laid on the surface and pressed with fingers into each nook to capture the print.

This is a plate created by one of the ladies.  It is sort of trees.  It is hot glue onto board.  What a fun thing to do - creating art with hot glue.

Rubber Stamps - Paint was applied to the gelli plate and used like a large ink pad.  The stamps were pressed onto the plate and stamped onto white card stock.


The advantage of this method your print is permanent when dry.

Stencils - The gelli plate was cleaned with rubbing alcohol.  The stencil was laid onto the plate and paint was applied with a brayer.  The stencil was carefully removed and then a piece of white card stock was placed onto the gelli plate to capture the print. 

In a couple of hours several prints were created with various methods, we got to know each other a bit better, the creative process include collaborations and discussions and a good time was had by all.

This is one of the pieces created by DM

It was created by using rubber stamps as texture on the gelli plate then capturing the print onto card stock. 

I think it is wonderful.

Some of the prints stayed at my house as they were not dry yet.  I will connect with MS in a couple of weeks.

Blah Paper - Bonus

Here are the sheets of paper I "printed" from the ink I applied to my blah paper.  I used 32lb bond paper I had on hand.  Once the was the ink applied and I felt I could do no more, I just laid this 8.5x11 sheet onto the12x12 sheet then pulled it up. It was interesting that not all the colors reacted the same way.  I think to the blue really spread nicely but the others beaded to varying degrees and would not spread smoothly.  You can see the stripes and the brush strokes really well in the top left.  I cleaned my brush on the others so I ended up with a more funky pattern. 

How To: Paper Decorating

The creating on the silicone with color then printing onto paper was not my favorite technique. It's possible that my mat not being white made it harder to see what I was creating and therefore I was not as happy with the results. Using glaze instead of acrylic paint affected our end product as well because it's translucent and not opaque.
I ended up liking the printing with a letterpress or an embossing folder the most. This involved mixing the glaze medium and color together then applying to the letterpress/folder with a rubber brayer. Placing the paper onto the silicone mat for a bit of give then turning the letterpress/folder over onto the paper and pressing it down. I used a rolling pin as my brayer was full of color.  It really needs consistent pressure throughout the surface.   You can see that I printed over a layer I had printed and left to dry.  That's the beauty of the process, just keep adding until you are happy with the paper.
In the bottom picture my sister is using a foam brush over a stencil with a couple colors.   The top row is a sample of some of the paper we created this weekend.  It was a good experience and great to spend time with my sister.

Cool Tools - Mono Printing

My sister and I worked on mono printing on the weekend.  I was inspired by the Gelli Plate buzz on the internet.  My first challenge was finding an economical substitute for the the plate.  I found the pink silicone place mat at a discount store.  My sister bought a large non stick mat made for candy making. Our costs were in the $6 range. We set up our tables, spread out the necessary plastic sheet on our work surface, then placed our silicone mats.  The tools we selected were: a rubber brayer, foam brushes, stencils (fun foam and plastic), letterpress plates, embossing folders, texture makers (foam drawer liner, foam shapes, sequin hole ribbon, rubber texture tools) spritz bottles and rags, water and sink for clean up.  We choose clear and colored glaze was our medium.  I added some re-inker to create paper in colors I could match later.