Monday 30 June 2014

An eBook and June 2014 Recap

I can't believe it's July tomorrow and that half the year is over....

I have discovered this app called Steller in which you can make eBooks - so I've made one of my collages and one on creating gelli prints - just to try it out.


What happened in June??? Let's have a look....


I had an arty farty Gelli Party!!


I created loads of collages....


I participated in a bloghop and created this gorgeous dragonfly collage....


And did some more gelli plate printing....


Well, that was June...I wonder what July will bring? Hope you had a great first half of the year.

Saturday 28 June 2014

Gelli Plate Printing Reality Check

Yesterday I created this gelli plate print which I really like. Whilst we have some idea how a print will turn out when we pull the paper from the plate often it's still a surprise as sometimes we don't press hard enough, or the colours are wrong - I recently found out that purple on yellow makes the purple muddy and more blackish.


I was inspired to create this vase collage from a painting I saw whilst out shopping on Wednesday.





Whilst creating this I realised that I don't have many brown prints or untextured prints so I decided to create some as I'd like to do more vases - a completely textured background and textured vase was too busy on the eye for me. A plain background gives the eye somewhere to rest and helps the vase to stand out a be the star of the picture.

I created some plain prints using the large 10x14in plate...



and some textured backgrounds....


So back to the stencilled print...here's the stencil I used - Debbi Baker gave it to me when she came over for the Gelli Party Play Date earlier this month - it is meant to be hung on the wall and you can see how big it is so the material/plastic is quite thick.


I didn't take any step by step photos of the technique but here are the results and the method:

1.  Have plenty of backgrounds ready and plain paper too.

2. Roll a contrasting colour paint onto your gelli plate then position your stencil on the plate.  Now choose either plain or painted paper.

3. Place paper on stencil and press hard making sure you get inbetween all the spaces:

You can see from these prints that sometimes I didn't press hard enough in places but I'm still going to use these prints and may outline the painted and what should have paint areas.

4. Take your stencil off the plate and you are left with paint on the plate that was trapped underneath the stencil. Be quick, don't dawdle - grab your painted print and press it down on your plate - press hard  and then pull your print off. Voila!!!


Results depend on how much paint is left on the plate - I may even have tried letting this paint dry and then adding another layer of paint before pulling my print - the blue print.

I wanted to show you the good and 'bad' prints so you understand why I was so happy to get a good one and so you know that I don't always get great prints - I want to be realistic with you.

Here are the prints from the one paint on the plate - 2 yellow backgrounds with alizarin crimson on the plate for the stencil.



This method is shown in many videos esp by Barbara Gray of Clarity Stencils - so check her out.

If you have any questions then let me know in the comments, I'm more than happy to help.  Or maybe you'd like to join the Facebook group?

PS  Do you love creating gelli prints?  Want a place to discuss gelli printing?  To show off your work?  Share your ideas? Discuss the pros and cons of different paints/paper/plates/tools etc?  Get some great ideas on what to do with the thousands of prints you have created?
Inspire and be inspired as a part of the Gelatin Printing Enthusiasts Facebook Group. I would love for you to join me there.



Wednesday 25 June 2014

The Winner Is...



The winner of the Blog Hop Giveaway heart pendant is......






Congratulations to Allison Barringer and thank you and everyone for reading and commenting on my blog.

And because I'm feeling happy I'm going to send out some gelli prints and happy mail to....




Congratulations to Chris!!!!

Thanks again everyone, hope you enjoyed reading all the blogs in the Blog Hop Club and we'll be back next month with another blog hop and giveaway.




Saturday 21 June 2014

Blog Hop Club Post and Giveaway

Dragonfly Gelli Print Collage


Today is my turn to take part in the Blog Hop Club blogposting.


Totem Animals was the chosen topic and I wasn't exactly sure what that was but I have been painting dragonflies for a few years now but have never created a dragonfly gelli print collage.

I used some scrap prints in a blue-green colour for the dragonfly and the grass, for the background I created this yellow-orange print on A4 large paper to contrast with the dragonfly and the grass. I used a glue stick to glue the papers down into my black art journal. I've kept it simple, usually I outline everything but my paint pens hate me and have decided not to. 


I created this card as a thank you for friends and to test out my project.






Some of my dragonfly acrylic paintings:


And now for the giveaway!!!  One of my Heart Pendants!!!



You just need to leave me a comment and I´ll choose a winner next Tuesday once all my fellow bloggers are done.

But wait!!! there are more chances to win amazing prizes
to enter you need to visit and comment the following artists blogs in the scheduled days


PS  Do you love creating gelli prints?  Want a place to discuss gelli printing?  To show off your work?  Share your ideas? Discuss the pros and cons of different paints/paper/plates/tools etc?  Get some great ideas on what to do with the thousands of prints you have created?
Inspire and be inspired as a part of the Gelatin Printing Enthusiasts Facebook Group. I would love for you to join me there.


Thursday 19 June 2014

Gelli Print Collages on Black Background

I've been creating gelli print collages in a black art journal - by using the journal I free myself from the burden of perfectionism and having to create something original that is for sale - this way I tend to create for me. 

I started by creating some of the abstract landscapes I've been creating....







then I cut out different shape....


and was inspired by Rex Ray and Pinterest.....

I used a lot of scrappy bits of gelli prints and usually went for a wide variety of colours.



PS  Do you love creating gelli prints?  Want a place to discuss gelli printing?  To show off your work?  Share your ideas? Discuss the pros and cons of different paints/paper/plates/tools etc?  Get some great ideas on what to do with the thousands of prints you have created?

Inspire and be inspired as a part of the Gelatin Printing Enthusiasts Facebook Group. I would love for you to join me there.

Monday 16 June 2014

Guada's Blog Hop Club



Some weeks ago Guadalupe Brizuela Cabal from Guada's Art Place invited me to take part in a blog hop club which starts at Guada's blog on Tuesday and my turn will be on Saturday.


A group of artists and bloggers gathered to share our art with you
Each of us is Unique
Each of us has our own voice
and we are here because we love art so much...♥



I'm very excited to show you the rest of this Gelli Print Collage, how I created it and will be having a giveaway too.

Please visit the blogs on this list, grab some inspiration from great artists, enter the giveaways and have fun!



What can you win?
Each artist is giving away something awesome such us:
Ink Sprays
on line classes
 hand made pendants
original art works
postcards
and even an original hand made journal!
To enter you need to visit each one of the blogs on the scheduled days and leave a comment, you are also invited to share on facebook, twitter or even in your own blog.
We are all excited and ready to start the fun!
Keep an eye on our blogs!

Tuesday 10 June 2014

More Gelli Print Collages

I had such fun playing with my gelli prints and turning them into collages I made some more...

Which one is your favourite? My faves are the last three!!!  























Here are some of the round prints before collaging them:




PS  Do you love creating gelli prints?  Want a place to discuss gelli printing?  To show off your work?  Share your ideas? Discuss the pros and cons of different paints/paper/plates/tools etc?  Get some great ideas on what to do with the thousands of prints you have created?

Then I would love you to join me at the Gelatin Printing Enthusiasts Facebook Group.

Saturday 7 June 2014

Gelli Print Collages 3

I've been playing with some of my gelli plate prints and creating some collages with them.

I loved the middle print as soon as I saw it as it looked like a mountain range with snow on it.  To give it a setting I added the blue/water print below it and the orange/sun circle above it.  I've not added anything else yet such as dots/shading/shadowing as I'm going to leave it like this for now.






Here is the original print - top right - I used a zigzag mask (made from a cereal box) on the round gelli plate:



 Here's another one I created - kept the blue at the bottom plain and untextured as textured prints seemed to busy for me.



This is the first one I created - I wanted it to be a happy piece - the hearts are a Kaiser Craft stamp - Save the Date - Pennants range - I coloured them in with Inktense water soluble pencils.



I created these in my art journal by cutting out 5 inch and 4 inch round circle gelli prints and then decorating them Kaiser Craft Save The Date - Pennant stamps and watersoluble oil pastels.  I wanted to show that a smaller gelli plate would be great for art journaling - it is a better proportion to the page as it leaves room around the edge to decorate, price wise it would be cheaper and portability - it's easy to take it with you - gelli plate printing doesn't require water but uses hand cleanser with alcohol in it and paper towels to clean the plate and brayer.  Gelli Arts brought out two new plates last week which are a smaller size - great for bookmarks, tags, cards and art journaling too - so a smaller round plate shouldn't be too far away I hope. ;)



PS  Do you love creating gelli prints?  Want a place to discuss gelli printing?  To show off your work?  Share your ideas? Discuss the pros and cons of different paints/paper/plates/tools etc?  Get some great ideas on what to do with the thousands of prints you have created?

Then I would love you to join me at the Gelatin Printing Enthusiasts Facebook Group.