Resist

We had a fabulous evening last night with the boys and Kelly. There was good food....engaging conversation and lots of belly laughs. Sam brought packs of vintage 1990 Topps baseball cards for everyone. A highlight of the evening was when everyone tried to stump Paul with his vintage baseball knowledge....and he nailed almost every question. He even got guessed a player's daughter's name right.

I've got something else fun to report....but it has to wait because it deserves a post all its own.

Linda D. sent me this photo a week or so ago....and it made me chuckle.

I thought it spot on....but it's also the perfect segue into into the theme of this post. 

Yes...we have to continue the RESISTance to save democracy...but this post is about another kind of resist.

Did you know that you can use anything with foil accents as a stencil on the gelli plate? The foil acts as a resist....and I'll explain how it's done.

Kelly and Sam gave us an Aura digital photo frame...and it was wrapped in this gorgeous foiled snowflake paper. The frame is fun...and we've already loaded a bunch of family photos. 

I carefully unwrapped the box because I wanted to save every inch of the paper...and I used a piece of it to make this print.

For the first print I rolled aqua blue on the plate. Then I placed the paper with the foil side down and pressed it into the plate pretty well.

You can see that the wrapping paper is covered with the blue paint...but the foil resisted some of the paint leaving an imprint on the plate.

Once the blue snowflakes were dry...I rolled white paint on the plate. The fresh wet paint will pick up the dried paint.

 I pressed a piece of copy paper down ...and let it sit about 30 seconds then pulled the print.

It turned out pretty well.

I wanted to see if I could use the same piece foil paper a second print...and yes I could. This time I rolled white paint on the plate first to make the imprint.

You can see that the foiled paper is now completely covered up with paint...so a third print was not possible. I know because I tried.

  

Once the white snowflakes were dry...I rolled bright blue paint on the plate and pulled the print. I love this one even more.

I sacrificed on small swatch of the paper and got two pretty prints. 

 

I'm certainly going to try this resist technique with other foiled papers. 

I used part of the prints to make a thank you card and envelope liner!

Making art...is an act of resistance.

"Playful Pages" Cover

I counted at least 80 ducks on the pond today! What fun it was to hear all the honking and watch them playing round. They're all on their way somewhere...but I'm so glad they stopped by for a visit!  

I used a heavy calendar page as the base for the cover of my Playful Pages art journal. I cut swatches of the painted papers and randomly patched together them like a crazy quilt attaching them to the calendar with a glue stick. I folded the edges over to the back and covered the inside cover with vintage floral paper. This is just a base layer.....I will likely add more as I go along with the class.

This two sided vintage looking paper was the inspiration color scheme for the papers and the book. It reminds me of the wall paper at my grandmother's house...maybe that's why I was drawn to it. I used a little on the cover and will incorporate it here and there inside too. I'll share the inside pages tomorrow.

I was also compelled to do a few more prints using brighter colors as the underpainting.  And they coordinate with the vintage inspiration paper too!

Powder Prints

This frosty leaf was my favorite find on my walk this morning....it has a bit of a swirl! 

And what's not to love about this beauty. 

Before I start sharing my Playful Pages journal, I thought I would backtrack a little and share more about the process of gelli printing with paint and baby powder. When I'm working with the gelli plate it's hard to take photos because I work fairly quickly...and I get so absorbed that I just forget. But I'm going to try and explain how I made these three prints.

I'll start by saying that I got the idea of using powder from two artists I admire. It's much easier to see the process in their Instagram videos than in my photos. 

Here's a post by Drew Steinbrecher. 

I was also very inspired by this post by Brigit Koopsen. Now I want to do more with multiple colors. 

I rolled a thin layer of paint on the plate...it was a mixture of blues and greens.

I sprinkled baby powder OVER the paint....and it will act as a resist.

If you use the powder on the first print...you will get white spaces in the print. If you don't want the white spaces...start with a sheet already painted.

This is the first print...and you can see that there is still quite a bit of paint on the plate....and the powder is mostly there too. It looks like that's powder on the print...and some of it is...but some of it is also the white paper showing. You can brush off the the excess power on the print with your hand or a damp cloth...or just leave it. 

I always used a "junk sheet" to quickly pull up extra paint on the plate after a print. I use the same sheet over and over and it often gets interesting. 

I thought the first print was a little dark and...and I wanted to soften it and create even more texture. 

So I applied another layer of paint to the plate...this time a lighter blue and green with a little white mixed in. I sprinkled more powder...and printed over the SAME print. It lighted it up...and doubled the texture...even after I brushed off the powder. 

I used the same junk sheet to try and get more wet paint off the plate. 

This is what the plate looked like after the two prints. There is still powder residue...AND remember there is paint trapped UNDER the powder. 

I spread a thin layer of white paint over the whole plate and pressed a clean sheet of paper onto the plate and let it sit there for about a minute. That fresh paint helps clean the plate and pull up most of the paint. 

These clean the plate pick up prints are always some of my favorites....you never know what you're going to get. And I particularly like this one. 

The white paint mixes with the bits of color still on the plate to create a dreamy background. That dark blue was trapped under the powder....now it's back on top. So much scrumptious texture!  

And here's my clean up junk sheet that I used in between prints to remove any remaining wet paint. 

To fill it in a bit....I put just a drop of aqua paint on the plate with a spritz of water. I smeared it around with my brayer creating almost the consistency of watercolor. You don't need much! 

Then I took one last print with the junk sheet. The watered down paint fills in the white spaces and gives me a usable print...or the base for another print. Layer...layer...layer. 

Grungy Color and Texture

I did some gel plate printing today and I'm amazed the effects I could get using just powder and paint. 

I gathered a bunch of one sided prints (many of them rejects) and worked on both sides of each page. I just kept layering...rolling paint on the gel plate and sprinkling it with powder. I didn't clean the plate in between layers.

Now I have a bunch of two sided prints full of grungy color and texture to play with.

Refojo!

Dotty bounced back a little joy in her comment on yesterday's post. She was curious about the word discombobulated so looked up the origin....and it's worth going back to read her full comment. Basically the word comes from a trend in the 1820s and 1830s of creating funny, elaborate-sounding words to express simple ideas. 

I loved everything about her comment....and spent some of my day trying to come up with my own elaborate-sounding word. It was harder than I thought.

Refojoputterosity: The ability to refocus my joy while setting aside life's worries and frustrations to putter in my studio. The short version could be refojo! That's what I did last night.

My computer is working today....so I can avoid dealing with it another day or two...or three. Maybe it just needed to refojo a bit too.

So last night with my extra time I played around with something I've wanted to try for a while now....using baby powder on the gelli plate as a resist. 

It works really well...and smells really good too! The prints are full of texture...and are almost a bit grungy. Some of the powder stays on the plate and can be used for several prints. 

Most of these prints...by the way...are double sided. 

And just in case you're curious...this is how I photograph my papers.  (And it gives me a chance to celebrate all the colorful glass in my dining room window.)

I start by folding the bottom one and anchoring it under the salt and pepper shakers. Then I tuck all the others under one at a time. 

These papers sat there all day long...reminding me to refojo...as often as I need to.

Prussian Blue

Every day I wonder what has happened to our country. 

It makes me sad, angry and worried,

I think it's time to attend another rally.

But making stuff helps me balance it with some joy.  

I had my first gelli printing session with some of my wire vine. It's been a while since I've printed anything...and it generally takes me a few rounds to get into my groove. 

Since I was using acrylic paint I could have chosen ANY color. But I chose Prussian blue...just like the cyanotypes. That made me chuckle.

Some of these may get another layer...and I will certainly try them in another color.

But I'm happy with them so far. They're kind of watercolory and have a lot of texture.

Most of the magic happens on the ghost prints with the leaf impressions that were left on the plate after the first pull. Once that paint was dry...I applied white paint to one and dark to another to pick up the print. I love all the little details...a few leaf folds came through beautifully on the white one. 

And speaking of blue....Clarke knitted me this beautiful scarf. I really didn't plan my outfit for this post...but I guess I wrapped myself in Prussian blue today!

The pattern is just beautiful! Thank you Clarke! I love it!

Spontaneous Decision

(Just a reminder that if you are reading blog posts via email sometimes the photos are way out of proportion....and I don't know why or how to fix it. To see the posts formatted as the were meant to be, you can view them on the blog by clicking the title of the post or the link to the blog prompt at the end of the email.) 

I have at least a dozen studio projects in my head that I've been itching to do....but I made a spontaneous decision to sign up for a quick course by Jane Davies called The Visual Sentence. I am hoping it will help me loosen up and improve my printing and collage skills.....and maybe it will inspire me to get back to my Jane Davies inspired stripes project this summer.

So I spent the afternoon with my gelli plate doing the first couple of steps in the process....layering shapes with hand cut stencils and making bold gestures with paint and color.

Pieces and parts of these will eventually become visual words....that will join together to become visual sentences (hopefully). Finally we will embellish with paint and collage....and in the end maybe our sentences will even tell a little story.

One can dream.... spontaneously!

Grungy Textures

A few grape hyacinths have popped up in the neighborhood....they are one of my spring favorites. 

I spent the whole afternoon with Kelly (Sam's girlfriend) and I introduced her to gelli plate printing. We went over some of the basics of what's possible....and now she can just run with it because I've gifted her one of her own. 

Kelly is an accomplished artist....so she'll have a lot of fun coming up with interesting strategies and techniques to get the most out of it. There are SO many ways to use it.

Many of these papers are two sided...and we were going to texture and a bit of grunge. Several of them will benefit from another layer.

We both really liked this one. 

The blue grass was a ghost print from another print that she dried then picked up with fresh white paint. We loved how the print picked up all the old paint on the plate giving the print lots of grungy texture. It's prettier in person. All the papers are prettier in person. 

It was a wonderful day....and tomorrow is going to be interesting for a whole different reason. Stay tuned.

Purrfect

"Make space for connecting with others in a way that brings joy, love, and richness to life." 

It's a miracle! I can see my table and we're ready for cards!

Of course...I can't see the guest bed. But that's a problem for another day.

 

I just love the morning shadows of the glass balls on the dining room wall.

And you can see I'm displaying my Tiny Pages Art Exchange cards here.

I got Tracie's recycle/repurpose card in the mail today....and it's adorable. Tracie is new to gelli printing and she repurposed a few of her first prints into some clever little cats.

I think the green and purple textures make the purrfect fur. And now I'm also noticing the geli print in the background too. Well done Tracie!  

And it came inside this amazing fall tree watercolor card. 

Thank you Tracie! These trees are stunning! 

Now Tracie's cards are on display in the late afternoon light! 

Perfect for this beautiful fallish day.