Greetings!

Just been playing with my little 6" Gelli plate and a few blank greetings cards. I also added matching borders to the envelopes. The cards were finished off with a bit of stamping and homemade washi tape. Lots of fun!

Playing With Pattern

Following on from my previous post about texture plates, I decided to make a little video about different (mostly recycled/free) stuff that you can use for creating patterns on your gelli plate. I like commercial stencils and stamps but I have to say it's usually much for satisfying to come up with my own 'tools' for pattern making. Have a look and see what you think.

Have you got a favourite tool for printmaking? Do share, I'd love to know!

Creative Colour Challenge

This week I'm all about monotypes. I was digging through my printmaking supplies a few days ago and this prompted me to pull a few new prints. I enjoy monotypes because they offer immediate gratification along with a faint air of unpredictability. Unlike woodcuts or linotypes you only get one print from a mono because the smooth plate is inked and then drawn or otherwise marked into before pressing. The ink and design is more or less exhausted by that one pull although it's sometimes possible to get a second faint 'ghost' from the same plate.

Anyhoo I just signed up for Louise Gale's Creative Colour Challenge where each week we have a new colour to explore. This week's theme is yellow. It's a really fun way to try something new as I don't normally work in tones of just one colour. We are allowed to use black and white in addition but it's still a good stretch to create something. This piece uses Cadmium yellow, Hansa Yellow, Naples Yellow and Nickel Azo Gold and it's a mixture of monotype, block printing and a good thick trowel full of acrylic paint.

If you fancy a go yourself I think there's still time to sign up - just go to the link I posted above. And if you want to see what everyone has produced this week take a peek at the Flickr group. Can't wait to see what we're doing next week!

Little Devil

It's still as hot as you-know-where, so it's seems appropriate to post this little guy! I do so enjoy making monotypes and this costumed boy is all dressed up for the Mexican Day of the Dead festival. He's printed in black ink, some of which I remove from the plate drawing the figure, and then colour is added with Karisma pencils. Lots more pictures here

I Spy

This latest monotype is made by removing ink from the plate before printing. It's quite a tricky thing to get your head round as you have to effectively look at it as if it were a photo negative, but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.
You can see some photos of the printing process here

The Bus Ride

Another monotype which began life as some abstract blocks of colour. I moved the colours around on the plate then printed it with no real end point in mind. While it was drying I laid it out on my desk so I'd see it every time I went in and out of my studio and in one supremely left field moment this blue haired woman with a duck looking over her shoulder leapt off the paper at me! I love it when that happens.

Available here

Trailer Dog

I've recently got hooked on monotype printing thanks to my friend Belinda. It's a fascinating process which produces one-off prints.

You start with a smooth metal plate and paint your image onto it using any number of media - the trailer dog is printing ink and gouache - then you transfer it to paper either using a press or by hand with a brayer. When you pull the paper away the painting has migrated to the paper giving you an original and wonderfully textural piece of art!

See more details here