Let Me Count the Ways......

Alstromeria leaves used as a screen stencil with thickened fabric dye

Pattern made with Alstromeria screen

Flora on Fabric

• Screen printing with plant parts as stencils (see the photos above)
• Deconstructed Screen Printing with plants (see below)
• Flower photos turned into fabric collage
• Direct/Monoprinting with plants
• Gelli plate printing(also below)
• Botany textbook illustrations scanned and printed on fabric
• Natural dyes from plants
• Botany lab illustrations
• Eco printing
• Sun printing
• Flower pounding
• Plant drawings scanned and printed

To the left is an example of some deconstructed screen printing done with paperwhite narcissus flowers and leaves, after they were first used as stencils. The thickened dye dried while I was distracted by something else.  

Next time, I'd start in with some step-by-step instructions.

Gelli plate printing with bamboo leaves on paper

Mono Printing.... and Lutradur

Mono Printing.

Paint was layered on the printing plate . Then the marks were made in the paint. The Star shape was a metal cookie stamp on a handle. 

You can create a gelatin plate to do this or you can purchase a gelli plate by Gelli Arts. Or you can use a piece of acrylic or a glass plate. 

the frugal crafter has a video of how to do mono prints and she also has tested recipies on how to make your own gelli plate. 

The technique for mono printing is the same whether on glass, acrylic or a gelatin plate. 

Layer the paint onto your surface with a brush, brayer, squeegee, credit card. 

Make marks in the paint with stamps, roller stamps, brushes, even your fingers. 

Then take the Lutradur and lie in on top of the paint.

 Pat it down. Or use a clean dry brayer to roll over it. 

Then carefully peel the print off and set aside to dry. Pattern and colour at once!

Great texture when you use heavier acrylic paints.

or use less paint and get a lighter effect. I can't quite remember this may have been a second print when we had our play day  with my small group. 

This was done with roller stamps. 

One thing to remember when you mono print is the design will be a reverse image of what you have drawn. This becomes a problem when you use letters as they come out reversed.

Mono printing is endless fun. Each print is unique. Sometimes you can get a second lighter print.  

Grab your paints, stamps, string, mark makers of any kind. I am always on the look out for interesting potato mashers now.

You can use mono printing with paper of course or fabric but I like the way the lutradur holds structure or form and allows for the translucent of the lutradur. 

 The plates wipe clean quickly so you can create many prints in a short time to add to your stash for mixed media supplies or your art work. 

So try some mono printing the next time you feel the need to create! 

Have you used mono prints in your work? or tried it with Lutradur? 

Let us know your tricks, success or failures. 

Jo 
thesewinggeek.blogspot.ca

Closer to Finished

Remember one of my first attempts at gelli printing on fabric?  I have now backed it with felt and did some quilting/thread sketching on it.

Here is a detail.

And then I added some metallic paint.

It is now going to sit on my design wall for a while to see what else it needs before I call it done. The plan is to mat and frame it.

Gelli Printing With Wood Masher

Lynda here again with a short post about gelli printing with another one of my kitchen tools - a wood masher.

For this design, I covered the gelli plate with blue paint. I then dipped the masher into red paint and proceeded to stamp it on the plate. I also made sure to push down on the masher to remove some of the blue paint so the white fabric would show through.

And here is that print.  That white line on the right is from a string that was on the plate.  I planned to cut this up so it didn’t make any difference.

 

I thought this piece would make a great fabric bracelet. 

I cut out a piece 1½ inches wide and long enough to fit around my wrist, and backed it with felt. I then hand stitched it including the blanket stitch around the entire piece, added a button, and stretchy wire for closure.

 

Gelli printing is so much fun and so easy.  I hope these posts have encouraged you to try this. It's really quite addicting!

Gelli Printing With Kitchen Tools

Hi! Lynda Heines here from Bloombakecreate. 

I love to shop thrift stores where I’m always on the lookout for stuff I can use in my art from white shirts to dye to kitchen tools for printing.

 For this post I am using three different kitchen tools to play with my gelli plate.

But before I get started I wanted to give you some tips I learned from working with this printing plate on fabric.

1.  Any cheap craft paint work.
2. Since craft paints dry too fast, I add Golden Open Acrylic Medium to slow down the drying time. This gives me time to play with my designs.
3. Less is more – paint, that is.
4. For any tools like these (except the one that makes lines) you have to push down into the plate to get an indentation. The line tool didn’t require any pressure. In fact, I wanted to be careful so I didn’t poke a hole into the plate.

So let’s get started.

I begin by putting dots of paint on the gelli plate.

Then I add the Open Acrylic Medium.

Next I spread the paint on the gelli plate with my roller.

Then I took this tool (have no idea what it was used for) and made some cool lines.

 

 Next I pressed the fabric into the plate. I love how I can see the pattern through the back of the fabric.

 

 Here is the finished lined piece, but I’m not done.

 

Let’s add a different color and this big potato masher.  

Then some circles with the whisk.

 

And then add lines vertically.

 And here is the finished print.

 Here is another piece without the lines.

 I just had to show you a closeup of that one.

The next two I cheated using a commercial batik as the base fabric.  I only used one paint color on this first one.

 This is the same batik fabric with a blue print using the potato masher and a yellow print with the line tool.

Since this was my favorite piece, I made a small wall hanging. I backed it with felt, hand stitched, machine stitched the edges, and then attached it to canvas I painted gold.

 So much fun! But there is more. I’ll be posting a little more later using some of my other kitchen tools.

Gelli Plate Results

Last night when I got home from work I realized I had left my gelli printed fabric at work.  What a shame, now I had to play some more.  I made these four prints.

To make these backgrounds I used the brayer to spread the paint on the gelli plate then made different textures using a comb, paint brush (both ends), and a variety of other odds and ends.  Gotta do it quickly before the paint dries. I used light colors because when I print I tend to go from light to dark and back to light.

Then I would position the fabric on part of the gelli plate. I wanted a variety of colors/shape/textures on the fabric so I would only place a corner or one edge of the fabric onto the plate.   To print I rub the fabric with my hand to transfer the paint.  I found I liked using my  hand better than using a dry brayer.   The brayer caused wrinkles but my  hand didn't. You can either get paint on your hand (which I sometimes decided to do) or you can place a piece of paper on the fabric before rubbing it since the paint does sometimes bleed through the fabric.

I found I could get a first strong print and a second ghost print using this method. That was really pretty cool because if I used only one corner of the gelli plate for a direct print on one piece of fabric, then I could used the top half of the gelli plate for a direct print and the bottom corner as a ghost print at the same time on my next piece of fabric--a two-fer.

I repeated this process till I was satisfied with a nice background (see above).

Now it is time to add the foreground.  Remember this is what I wanted the finished fabric to look like:

1. Abstract compositions with planes of colors
2. Strong horizon lines
3. Complex layering achieved through texture and color
4. A symbolic representation of "an individual" in each.
5. The design/composition finished (or resolved) by printing or by stitch.

I made a mask out of card stock to represent my "individual" and then I repeated the same process I used in making the background but this time I used darker colors. I think two of the prints are ready for stitching.  The other two prints either need more layers going back to light colors or to be used in a collage.

These are the two I like and will start some stitching on them.

These are the two that I will stare at for a while and decide where to go next.

This post is linked to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays

Welcome to ...ta da...THE GRAND PLAN

Now I have some background and texture going, I am ready to work on more of a focal point for the finished prints.  Here is my plan.

The Grand Plan (and a ton of links):   
First--my inspiration for my art style is Deidre Adams.
I checked out Elizabeth Barton's post about Quilt National.  In the post is a picture of a fabulous quilt created by Deidre Adams.  Elizabeth shared a really nice detail shot of the quilt and Deidre has more on her blog.  I checked out other fiber work by Adams on her website.  They are created with acrylic paint on fabric and stitch making them perfect for a gelli plate experiment.  Her fiber pieces very much remind me of the abstract expressism paintings by Mark Rothko.  My last print series was influenced by his work.  My only gelli plate experiments  are also inspired by Mark Rothko but were done on paper and not fiber. Now, you may  not care for this style but I love it and want to create fabric and finished art pieces that are clearly influenced by it. That's my BIG goal.  Lots of steps between here and there.

Second--my inspiration for content is Friedrich Nietzsche who said:
"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.  If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened.  But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."

This is what I hope to achieve in my prints: 

1. Abstract compositions with planes of colors
2. Strong horizon lines
3. Complex layering achieved through texture and color
4. A symbolic representation of "an individual" in each.
5. The design/composition finished (or resolved) by printing or by stitch.

After an evening of p rinting I ended up with 2 fabric prints that I think are close to being finished. That is really not a bad ratio.   As soon as I find my camera cord to download them, I will post my results and talk more about the process I used.

The Little I KnowAbout Gellli Plate Printing

As I have already said, I am just starting my experiments so I can tell you a few basics and then I will leave it up to the experts to tell you more.

 Things I have learned so far:

1. Acrylic Paint:  The gelli plate is really only for acrylic paint.  I didn't know that and it is a downside for me because I prefer to used thickened dyes and acrylic inks on fabric since it leaves the fabric softer.
2. Newspaper:  I read the instructions that said not to use dyes or inks with the plate but I did not translate that to mean "don't set the plate on newspaper."  Since I had to cover the surface of my table, I used newspaper and set the plate directly on the old newspaper.  It picked up the ink!  The plate does not transfer the ink when printing but the ink has stained the plate. Here is what my new Gelli Plate looks like now.
   
3. Mixing Colors:  Different types of paint will dictate whether you mix your colors on the gelli plate itself or on a palette of some kind and then transfer it to the gelli plate.  The thicker the paint, the more likely you will need to mix the  paints on the palette.
4. Playing Time: Acrylic paint dries very fast.  If you want to spend much time creating a design on your plate, you had better use an extender!
5. Cleaning up:  There are a variety of ways to clean your plate from washing with water, to wiping with baby wipes, to making a last print. Just cover the dry paint on the gelli plate with some fresh paint, cover with a paper for a print, and allow the paper to stay on the plate till the paint is dry.  Then pull off the paper.  You get a clean plate and a great print.   Here is a link that tells you about that last print.
6. Layers:  Everything looks better with layers. It is a rare print that needs just one layer to be finished.  In the words of Judy Sall, "Now I realize that layers are my lifeblood. I need them, crave them, won't stop until I have them. Complex, deliberate, intoxicating layers."  Yep, if you don't like what you have made with the gelli plate, it probably needs another layer.

Tutorials 
There are some good tutorials already produced so I am not going to recreate wheels.  Lisa Chin, one of our visiting artists, has one here-- Lisa Chin.
And here is a video.

Here is a link to my first attempts at paper prints using the gelli.  Tomorrow I am trying my first experiments with fabric and will let you know how it goes.  Please, feel free to give me some advice.  I will check before I start on Tuesday evening.

June's Technique--Gelli Plate on Fabric

Finally there is a Gelli Plate large enough that I was willing to buy it!  My 12"x14" plate arrived just two weeks ago and I was eager to incorporate it into my surface design repertoire.  I started searching the internet.  I found many artists who use the Gelli Plate with paper but few that use it with fabric.  There is generally much less information for using it with fabric.   Have you had the same  problem?

I pursued my goal with great diligence and dedication and I did find some wonderful blogs of fabric artists who use the Gelli Plate very effectively.  Since June is my month to host the Fire Blog, I decided to reach out to the fabric artists who have mastered the Gelli Plate and ask them for some assistance. I asked three if they would "appear" on the Fire Blog and all three said yes!  Wonderful!  You are so going to love this month of lessons for using the Gelli Plate on fabric!   Here is the schedule for the month. 

June 1
I am introducing the topic,giving some basic information about the Gelli Plate, and announcing the three generous artists who have agreed to share their expertise with us this month.

June 8
Lisa Chin is our first artist. Her blog is Something About Nothing.  Here is the Gelli Plate Tutorial with Leaves that made me know I wanted to ask her to join us.  I love printing using masks and stencils, particularly those that are picked from the back yard!  Her work is wonderfully layered!

June 15
Holly McLean has agreed to be the middle of the month artist to keep you engaged. Her blog is Through My Window.  Her blog post incorporated her doodles with printing with the Gelli Plate.  Two of my passions incorporated into one artistic pinnacle!  She turns her doodles into hand made stamps and uses them to print.  AND she is going to teach us her technique!  Yeah!

June 22
Lynda Heines is our final artist.  Her blog is Bloom Bake & Create.  This is the blog post of hers that made me think of Beth Berman who loves to print with her collection of potato mashers.  Since Beth and I are constantly on the lookout for non-art tools to use in making marks in print, Lynda won my heart!

I am excited by the plans for the month.  I hope that you are too.  So get out your Gelli Plate, acrylic paints, fabric, and stamping tools and get ready for fun.

 As soon as I figure out how, we will have an opportunity for you to  link  your posts on Gelli Plate printing here, at the bottom of this post.  Please, all month long post links of your art work using the Gelli Plate here.

Loading InLinkz ...