Monoprinting

I am glad to have the chance to publish some of my experiences on  The Fireblog. I follow this blog for a long time and I appreciate your works, they inspire me.

Thanks Beth for this opportunity!

My name is Carmina Plosceanu and I live in Bucharest, Romania. Ten years ago I discovered textile art on the internet, but I started working only in 2008, after I joined the Yahoo group called "Peticelul Romanesc" (Romanian Patch) which gathered together some Romanian ladies from Europe, who loved textile art. The Group has completed the work in 2011 and then I enrolled in Milliande Art Commnunity, where I participated in many artistic exchanges and I had much to learn.
I am self-taught, I learned to work by studying of different techniques on the internet. After I experienced various textile art techniques, I started doing something else, textile collages, paper collage, textile dyeing, painting, plastic fusing, surface design, paper or textile beads, tyvek,  monoprinting, etc.

 
Today I want to present some monoprintings. First I tried to do monoprinting with acrylic on a ceramic plate. The things have not really successful, perhaps because I have not chosen the best color consistency.

For this, I supplemented by adding a few lines of drawing and the result is this ...

Then I made myself a gelliplate, a little one...

In this case, things went easier....

  

  

Then I tried to monoprint by using a plastic sheet...hum, could be better, acrylic dries too quickly!!
Finally, I had to add some corrections, color effects, on the monoprinted sheet.

From all this, I was able to draw a conclusion: it is true that, working with gelliplate, things are going better.

Carmina

http://carminarte.blogspot.ro/ 

 

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 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.

Sloppy Monoprints

Beth and I got together on Friday and played with thickened dye.  Since it is "Monoprint Month" I suggested we make some more monoprints and Beth had the perfect technique lovingly called sloppy monoprinting.

First we covered up Beth's print table with a large sheet of plastic. Second we marked the plastic with tape to indicate the measurements of our fabric. Then came the sloppy fun; we spread thickened dye on the  plastic. Now if it had been paint, it would have laid nicely and behaved but because it was thickened dye it bubbled on the plastic making wonderful bubbly patterns. 

We laid the fabric on the dye,  rubbed with our hands and with a credit card, then peeled off the fabric and draped it over the railing on Beth's porch.  One layer done.

We repeated the steps till we liked the results. Then we batched the fabric.  Here are my first attempts at this technique (washed, dried, and ironed) and some detail shots.  I used cotton/bamboo fabric and both were 1 yard pieces.

This technique makes a great first layer for a whole cloth masterpiece or some wonderful material for cutting up and using in a pieced quilt.