Mather Printmaking Week 4: Gellie Printing

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Mather Printmaking week 4: Gellie Printing

So far, this was the most fun, and the most frustrating. I am my own worst enemy when it comes to these projects. I see in my head what I want to achieve, but not always the path to get there.

Gellie prints are flexible and ideal for quick print projects and can be used multiple times to get many different effects. 

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The gelatin plate for inking is made from 4 packages of gelatin mixed with 2/3 cup of cool water, mixed in a flat bottom surface container, and then add 1/3 cup of very hot and mix well. Cover and store in the refrigerator.

Surprisingly, the set-up gelatin comes out of your container quite easily, and the bottom of the thickened gelatin becomes your flexible, smooth and becomes a reusable plate for roughly two weeks until it begins to 'foul' up or crumble.

Mistake one---I chose a round container...lol. Why, because there are no corners to line up when doing multiple layered printing, so aligning is difficult, which I didn't even think of.

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Not too attractive, the gellie I made in an 8" cake pan. 

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Here you can see how thick it is...the rust mark is from the bottom of the old pan.

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We were told to start with a stencil....I did a bird cutout on a piece of card stock and had some pieces of fresh ivy. I inked the plate and went over the ivy and the stencil bird and this was backwards of what we were supposed to do, but this was a test idea to begin with.

This time I decided to use blue paper, before I inked the gellie, I placed the bird shape on the bare gellie, then inked the whole plate with a yellow-green brownish tone. You place your natural materials on into the ink press down, take a throw away print. Remove all the materials and stencils and take a second print (your real one) and see all the details. 

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I printed twice on the blue paper print. The second one with a blacker/brown red. and added the string...the idea being the bird was making a nest.

And this is when I decided placement needed to be better.

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Experimenting with a more area printed background...I lost the bird because I forgot to replace the stencil piece, and the alignment was still off...but that is so cool what did print.

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Here's another start....two layers, dark green background, and detail, and then rust on

top. My colors are far from perfect because I stuck with the colors given in the kit. A baby blue, a pastel yellow and a true red, also black ink. The pastel colors muddy everything...but I figured everyone in the classes had issues with their colors.

Because of having to work fast-----I didn't take photos as I was going along of every step. Acrylic paint dries very quickly even with a retarder added.

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Here is another start. I made a simple circle as a blocker for printing color background.

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I wanted a warmer yellow and adding a bit of red did help. 

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Yellow stencil covered in the golden red rim. By now I have my papers and my plate with markings to line up.

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You can kinda see where this might go---

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I followed that with a dark green print, then redid the ivies in a dark brown, and then a very controlled dark red, where I concentrated on the string. The blue bird was painted in a bit...as the poor bird got lost in the design. I could see the outline so I just did a wash of the blue paint. She needs eyes but I might still do another dark detail print on this, if I can line everything up. 

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The most important part is the learning curve on all this. A little paint and a bunch of paper---and an hours worth of time...I will revisit this technique within the next two weeks and see what I come up with. 

It's just such a great way to do prints but it's an inside-out-upside-down-backwards process, once you wrap your head around it!!!

HAVE YOU TRIED A NEW CRAFT, 

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The photos in  this blog are my own or I have permission to using them from family. Any others will be attributed to source if possible.

I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown. Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog 

without my permission. 

Thank you for your cooperation, 

Sandi

Mather Printmaking Week 3

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Mather Printmaking Week 3:Relief Printing

I've switched my Mather printing day to Friday, seems something always comes up in the middle of the week. The weeks are really seeming to go fast. Since the classes are now only 1 hour long, we really move fast.

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Everything I used for the printing today! 

 Early on Friday I preprinted some backgrounds since black and white really isn't my thing. I did this by using the paints included in the kit, and here is an example of mixing the yellow and blue(both pastels) and getting this. I did a few more in other colorations mixing paints, blending medium, and some with small amounts of black ink.

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Since this week was relief prints, where you press or carve into a surface to make a design that 'doesn't print' and the rest of the block or in this case foam surfaces does print. This is much like the wood block or linoleum carvings you might have done as kids. 

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I actually started on my surface before class,  you can see a bit of a complex garden scene I pressed into the 'foam' tray that was trimmed for the 'plate' surface.

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Directions/suggestions were giving by our hostess Ruth Guery on Zoom with emphasis on enjoying what you are doing as a learning experience and it's supposed to be fun.

I had dug into my little bin of junk from that DRAWER we all have, and used a lot of different things to press into the foam.

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I used the flower frog, the picture hangers, the small end of the bobby-pins, screws, a nail head (great for drawing) etc. 

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I was having so much fun carving, I did the backside also, this started as a sea horse and then morphed into a dragon.

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I had a piece of yellow cardstock set aside for the flower garden. I mixed some red with the black acrylic ink, and it gave a rich brown---the color of earth...which I though was apropos with the subject. My first print (top) wasn't great---they seem to never be great like the first tray of baked cookies or that first pancake, LOL.

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The second  and third print were deeper in color, but much of my detail didn't print...so after class I filled in the blank areas with some color---the illusion worked and these are charming small prints. I stuck with watered down mixtures of the three colors they gave me. It wouldn't be fair to be adding some of my hundreds of paints I have downstairs.

NEXT: 

I flipped my plate over and tried the seahorse/dragon. I added lots of blending medium to my ink so I could get a nice thin coat  on my brayer that might be even.

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Here is the plate with ink on it. You can see the ink filled in all the bubbles I had made, sigh. To the left you can see another 'plate' I made on dark denser foam.

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A few of the bubbles showed up here in the print. Still a lot of tiny details are lost, this is because of the very soft foam surface.

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Here you can see the second print on the green painted paper---l'm liking this, and the print is clearer, apparently I had moved the first one and that was part of the muddy look issue.

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I did two more...the one on the right had too much ink and really didn't work at all. I think when I washed the plate in between prints I also removed more detail by rubbing the surfaces clean.

Hmmm...Foam trays that are really soft don't last through many prints? Still great for working with kids or experimenting!

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It stands to reason that pressing on the paper (use the smooth surface of this little pitcher...will also compact the details foam. But the process is a learning experience.

I had another black tray (a bit denser) from a larger meat tray, I decided to use. I want to make a brick patio for the dolls, so I thought I might try an overall print that I could repeat. 

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Above is a roller from one of my shelf/racks in the cupboards I rolled this double edged 'wheel'  across the surface which was denser than the white foam. This was a nice smooth and thicker line which I hoped wouldn't fill with ink/paint.

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This was my first print and definitely interesting. 

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Here are two prints with a double image on them. The one on the left is a simple repeat, the other is a reverse print. I will have to try top edge to bottom edge prints next. 

This will definitely have possibilities for doing a patio and  I can see filling the small textured squares with coloring/moss and maybe using a gray paint on darker paper. I will play with this in the future as the black foam, printed very well and held it's details.

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Here's one more patio print on red/yellow painted surface...too quick and too loaded with paint which was part ink and red paint to make a brown. 

Phew! That was a very fast hour!

Maybe I will dip into my hundreds of colors down stairs and try some others. Now I have to buy meat according to their trays, LOL.

Can't wait for next week and Gelli prints? 

If you enjoyed this post please follow this blog by blogger or 

FOLLOW IT which you will find in the upper right hand corner of this page. 

Thanks always for visiting. 

I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question.

I will be sharing at these fine Parties!

Love Your Creativity

Metamorphosis Monday

The photos in  this blog are my own or I have permission to using them from family. Any others will be attributed to source if possible.

I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown. Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog 

without my permission. 

Thank you for your cooperation, 

Sandi

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Mather Printmaking-Week 2: CREATE Sticky foam prints called Collagraphs

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Number 2 in a series of Mather Printmaking Kits for Illinois for Seniors.

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Collagraphs, this was pretty straight forward and simple. We were given a 4"x6" piece of sticky kids' craft foam. This technique is perfect for kids or short runs of prints. This is a learning project, not necessarily creating GREAT ART...LOL. 

Materials: 

Sketchbook paper

1 sticky foam sheet (adhesive on the back)

scissors

Marker or pencil to make your design on the back before cutting.

Acrylic paint

Tinfoil surface for paint

extender/blending medium

brayer (rolling surface to ink)

piece of cardboard or plastic to stick your foam design on

washable work surfaces

I was a bit late in getting organized and I skipped drawing the pattern on the backside of the sticky foam...and just began cutting. I had in my mind a sort of Paisley idea.

The idea was to make something fairly simple that you could print multiple images of, ie. for wallpaper or fabric, or just to make a larger print.

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And, I didn't take photos of my pieces gluing on the cardboard. Simply cutout your shapes and then protective layer strip off the back and glue the pieces  on your cardboard or plastic surface to make your printing plate. This can be as simple or as complicated as you want. You can cut up your plate and make smaller independent images. 

Many people did this to make flowers, hands, hearts, images for multiple colors.

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My first print was this blue on the small piece of sketchbook paper. Paper that is heavier with a smooth surface takes the acrylic paint prints well.

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Like last week the paint was quickly drying. I had tried to emboss textures on the surface of my foam...but it only showed up as a hint, and the crevices immediately filled with paint. No biggie.

Cleaning off the plate with wet paper towel, I printed another blue one.

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I then did 4 images on a yellow piece of  yellow card stock sized 8 1/2" x 11". I did have trouble with the surface of the card stock getting stuck to the quick drying paint. Adding blending medium to my paint to slow the drying process helped and I had no more sticking. I think I will just automatically start adding gel to my inks and paints for better results.

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The red prints. My first red print I did was full strength red acrylic paint that was included with the kit. It was very dark and heavy looking on the white paper.

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Pure red paint on my second layer.

 Knowing that the blending gel would make the red more transparent, I added almost a glob of maybe 30-40% as much gel as paint. Mixing well, I made four print new impressions off center of my blue images on the yellow card stock. 

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I also reversed the up/down of each blue print to make it more interesting and then off set the red images a little to the left and down.

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I found my imagination really cranking.

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I could see alternating the vertical images with the  horizontals images in long stripes on fabric. Maybe with different top colors...this could be fun! 

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Here I have repeated my images...done on the computer...but you can see the possibilities for printing Fabrics or Paper items. These were just screenshot photos, but scanned images would be even better.

PRINTPRINTPRINTPRINTPRINT

The Collagraph Technique is simple and inexpensive...definitely something to try again.

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Mather has a facebook page where we get to share all our experiences, good and bad, but it is a great 

Creative LEARNING EXPERIENCE! 

Something I tried on my own this week was a found tool---to make my prints more consistent. Pressing on the back of the paper with your fingers to get your prints is pretty uneven and tools tend to tear up the dampened paper.  Desiring better prints, I pulled this little metal pitcher out of my kitchen drawer. It has a rounded bottom and clean flat surface to rub on the back of my damp paper. Any object with smooth edges and a flat surface would help to rub prints.

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Getting ready to press a print.

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Short mini-video showing how a found objects-

 pressing makes prints! 

Hope you enjoyed this simple project...have fun...

AND CREATE!

If you enjoyed this post please follow this blog by blogger or 

FOLLOW IT which you will find in the upper right hand corner of this page. 

Thanks always for visiting. 

I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question.

I will be sharing at these fine Parties!

Love Your Creativity

Happiness is Homemade

Metamorphosis Monday

Inspire Me Tuesday

Vintage Charm

The photos in  this blog are my own or I have permission to using them from family. Any others will be attributed to the  source if possible.

I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown. 

Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog 

without my permission. 

Thank you for your cooperation, 

Sandi