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Sunday 23 November 2014

Gelli Plate Printing

Good grief - I've finally done some art.

My Christmas presents arrived last week: a Gelli Plate, 4 Catalyst combs, and a Gelli Plate Printing book. Uni is over for the year - hooray, and it's time to play.

I think I've probably got an overall B+ or A- for Psalms - seriously over it tho.

Yeah, I know I'm a perfectionist, and too damn picky, but, of course, I'm not happy with what I got. One or maybe two out of 4 of the first attempt. The Chroma paints (ex fire-sale from Geoff's Emporium), although labelled transparent, weren't really, especially the blue. The Golden Open fluid acrylics worked better, and got a nice print from a paper towel. For the second attempt I wanted to try a particular technique, which gives a sort of wabi-sabi, worn effect. Maybe it's just too hot? About 23 deg inside ... the heavy body acrylics just gave a crappy result. I made some quatrafoil masks from 80gsm paper, but they stuck to the brayer, or came off completely. That little pile in the back right hand corner are the masks. The paint dried really quickly, didn't leave much of a print. Used some corrugated cardboard to make the lines. The image on the left is the 'quick prints' you pull to achieve the effect. The image on the right is the 'real' one.


Then the paint wouldn't come off the brayer or plate - had to use some Spray n Wipe and warm water to get it off. It's the print I would have liked to have got. This is the plate soaking in the sink:


Glued the two sheets into my art journal, then threw some pens, sparkle and words on the page:

Doesn't look much like the picture in the book - but then I wonder how many prints she had to pull before she got the one that was published?! Need to get some 100gsm or maybe 120gsm for cutting masks - that might work better, and maybe do the printing earlier in the day, or later - when it's not so hot, as it was a 1700-1800 ish.