Experimenting with Gelli Prints

On Saturday, I did a little experimenting with my Gelli plates, and Golden Acrylics. I made a stencil of three crows, and used both the positive and negative parts of the stencil for a variety of arrangements.

The Gelli plate is clear, flexible, and has the feel of a solid sheet of gelatin. The Golden Acrylics are slow-drying, and recommended for making these monoprints. The paint is rolled onto the plate with a brayer. Stencils and other flat objects can be laid onto the plate to block off certain areas. Here are a couple of prints that I made.

I added the birds' legs and the wire after.

It's going to be a busy week ahead, with five days of work, and some Christmas loose ends to wrap up. We had a snow storm yesterday with about 6 inches of snow, but today it was rainy and mild. The temperatures have been up and down recently with frigid lows below zero, then back into the 40's. I don't know why I'm surprised--this is New England!

Printmaking Workshop at MECA

I had the opportunity to go to a printmaking workshop at Maine College of Art in Portland on Friday.
One of my colleagues at work won the event in a raffle, and she brought me along. We had a good trip up to Portland Thursday night, and after finding our dorm, went out for dinner in the Old Port area.
The next morning we found a little diner, had breakfast and took another walk around town before heading over to the college for the day. We created a series of monoprints using oil-based litho inks.

Liam is demonstrating a reduction technique.

                   Working with the three primary colors of ink to make multi-layered prints

                                           A view of the studio space and presses

                     In the photo below, everyone is holding up their favorite print of the day.

Gelatin Prints

I spent a recent Saturday at a Monotype workshop, learning how to make Gelatin prints. Yes, regular old Knox Gelatin can be used to make monoprints without a printing press. Below is the gelatin plate ready to be inked up. (we used Akua Color inks and a brayer)

Our paper was attached to the plexiglass surface under the plate, so that it was easy to register the multiple layers of of the print (there is a "ghost" print on the left, and the first print on the right).

A grouping of leaves were placed on the inked gelatin plate to create the design you can see on the right.

Other materials included stencils, feathers, bubble wrap, lace, etc.

 (anything flat and textured worked well)

A variety of prints made with multiple layers!

The possibilities are endless, and the process is suitable for all ages!