New workshop

Hi

I have a workshop booked at That's Crafty in Romford on June 11th when I'll be running a Gelli Plate workshop:

Are you interested in buying a Gelli plate but not sure what it can create? Do you have a Gelli plate and want to get more out of it?

Then this a class for you!

In this class we will explore the Gelli plate: We'll use paints to make positive and negative prints, & use opaque and translucent paints to create different effects. We'll use stencils and other mark making tools to create interesting backgrounds for cards, journal pages or home decor pieces. 

The possibilities are endless with a Gelli plate! .. and a little addictive - but in a good way). 

You can use these techniques with whatever size and shape of Gelli plate you have.

I hope you can come along - armed with a Gelli plate and a brayer. If you don't have these you can purchase them on the day - you won't regret it! :o) 

Contact the shop to book your place

Share:

Gelli® Plate, that's crafty

Its in the bag....

.... over on the PaperArtsy blog this evening where I have a project to share..

click on the photo to visit the blog.

Share:

Gelli® Plate, paperartsy

ALBOTAT: Gelli playtime....

I've been playing around with my Gelli® plates recently....

Its hard to choose which of these I like the most - I like the crisp clean lines of the print on the right, but I love the distressed texture of the 'clean-up/ghost print' on the left..

aaah/sigh.. really like the colours on the prints below - bringing in the ACP:2 colours of the month with these gelli prints - 

This piece started off as a clean-up sheet (a page of thickish copier paper that I have on my desk to clean my roller off on) and I was wondering how easy it would be to draw on the Gelli® plate... not with a pencil or pen (that would not go well!) but with a paint brush - so I drew a simple flower (with Bougainvillea Fresco paint - everything looks good in that colour!) and (as I was just trying it out, nothing special, the sheet was probably destined for the bin so nothing to lose) I printed onto the clean up sheet.. and there was a bit of paint remaining so I printed again.... I liked it - drew a couple of stems in pencil and some outline detail... & liked it even more! (it hasn't gone in the bin!)

(and yes, some may say it looks like a small child drew it - but its simplicity is what makes it quite charming... imho!)
(A4 in size, and the flowers were drawn on a 3x5in Gelli® Plate)

Its just paint on paper - no two prints are going to be the same - all part of the process... that what makes printing interesting and a continuous learning curve.

x


(Gelli® used with permission. Owned by Gelli Arts® LLC)

Share:

fresco finish, Gelli® Plate

Alphabet Colour Project:2 May's colour is....

.. AQUA & PALE TEAL ..

This post title should really read 'Mays colour ARE...' as I'm lising two colours together because sometimes its hard to know where one of these colours starts and the other finishes lol & they can be one of those 'I say tomahto, you say tomayto! sort of colours.... if you get what I mean, imho)

I'm also bringing in THREE letters this month - that doen't mean three projects (I have enough trouble getting 2 projects done and dusted each month without trying for THREE!....)  I'm bringing K into this month because when I initially drew up the lists I only had 'kraft' listed but its since been joined by knitting and kaleidoscope (but my knitting is not fit for public display - so kraft will be the option and we know how much I love kraft!!)

Pale Teal and Aqua are such pretty, cool colours...

I'm thinking of teaming these colours with brown, dark blue, pale green but my eye is mainly being drawn towards coral,.... ooooh and orange.... so. many. options!!

         

photos:  pintrest

You can find my Aqua/PaleTeal/Turquoise Pinterest board HERE!

Thanks for stopping by.

x

Share:

ACP, Aqua/PaleTeal

ACP:2 Pink + H

I'm not going to beat around the bush - H is for HEXAGONS!!!

I'm slightly obsessed with hexagons at the moment!... ok, in truth its been while now... punches, dies.... gelli plates - boxes:....

Look at these lovely hexagon nesting boxes I bought on the PaperArtsy stand at AllyPally... I've temporarily put my kokeshi dolls in them to illustrate the size (tallest doll (in black) stands about 17cm) - I like them A LOT (both the dolls and the boxes lol)!!  The shape is so on trend at the moment and these boxes make for a more interesting display than square boxes - not that I have anything against square boxes of course...

A couple of  years ago there was this scrapbook page... (and the quilt that inspired it..).. lots and lots of hexagons! (the patience my Mum must have to have hand sewn all those!)..

OK, so Hexagons are my theme for the last part of April's Pale Pink month (and yes, I am aware that its now May - where is this year going!!!)... I chose to use the colours below with the hexagons... (I didn't actually use the pale pinks but have put them here to illustrate the palette I'd chosen)(and I actually picked several other paler colours as the project progressed)

I like the look of pale pink with pale blues and grey (pink and grey together look great on their own, and in my book Slate/dark grey goes with EVERYTHING)

This is the finished project.... or so I thought... the more I looked at it the more unfinished it seemed... (you'll see what I mean later)

Let me show you how I made this - its not overly complicated...  The substrate is a 10x14in board canvas - this is quite big for me - I'm itching to go bigger with projects but I'm doing it gradually :o)

Painted the canvas with a wash of slightly diluted 'Space Cadet' paint

I didn't want a 'solid' base coat and so I broke it up by removing the paint 'ragging' stylee - ie crumple up a piece of kitchen roll and dab the surface.... 

I decide this was too dark so I added paint (Hint of Mint) using kitchen roll again.... 

Still not happy with it, I added some 'Chalk' and 'Slate' ... the kitchen roll was being used a lot for this project...  I really like how this looked (the photo below is a close-up) started to have lots of lovely paint layers and texture... but its now what I wanted so..

I painted over the whole piece with a wash of Antarctic' and 'Chalk Fresco Finish paints and laid on the die cut pieces of pink patterned paper... 

but it still felt too dark so I repeated with another wash of the colours...

I laid the pieces on again and now I was happy...  I think its important to keep checking (if its possible) how the different layers are looking and working together as you go along... because you can then tweak colours, finishes and layouts... 

The stencil I'm using is from Artemio - I love it because its so big! (Its the one I used on my suitcase HERE )  I laid it on, checking that it worked with the position of the pattered hexagons

It would bother me if the hexagons weren't straight (!) and so I drew a pencil line down the canvas as a guide to line everything up to

...and glued them down. I'd always planned to cut the hexagons off at the canvas edge but I really like how they look hanging off the edges...

I stenciled the flowers in Slate - I like the bold contrast - black would've been to harsh...

To finish the canvas off I die cut the word 'Hope' (using Sizzix Serif Essentials dies) and painted it with Slate to coordinate with the stenciled flowers.  I dry brushed Chalk around hexagons - over the edges and onto the canvas to halp blend the two surfaces, and then I used a Grey Stabilo All Pencil to draw around the hexagons to give them a bit of depth.  I dragged the edge of the canvas in Slate.  The word 'Hope' was attached to the canvas using 3d foam.

Here's the 'finished' canvas again..

which I liked but felt it was missing 'something' down the left hand side... I wanted to write on it... in my head it was turning into a BIG journal page of sorts - what does the word HOPE bring to mind... what do I hope for?? (I think it about here that I occurred to me that HOPE begins with H which is letter of this post! lol I'd like to say I planned that but it was happy accident!)..
I couldn't bring myself to just write on it... Its a canvas, something to go on the wall - that little inner voice started up: what if its not straight? what if it looks 'wrong'? what if writing on it ruins it!???
So my husband had the 'brilliant' suggestion of writing the words onto acetate and laying it over the top of the canvas to get an idea of how it would look! That was a fine idea!

Biggish writing.... thickish pen... not really liking that...

What about if I wrote IN the hexagons... no, I liked that even less! lol 

Then  my husband suggested just single words ... die cut like the main word.... another great suggestions - he doesn't often suggest design options/ideas but when he does they are good - he was on a roll!
I dug out my QuicKutz dies (going old school here!) - the perfect size! and so quick and easy to use with the Big Shot!

I cut words out - 'eternal' 'weather' and 'well' using the QuicKutz dies and then 'Cure' using the Word Play die from Sizzix (I wanted that word to be bigger)  I painted these words in a mix of Slate, Space Cadet and Chalk - I didn't want these to distract from 'HOPE'. These words were glued flat to the canvas surface and I wrote phrases and journalling around them in grey felt tip pen - white was too pale, and black would be too strong/bold... I didn't want the handwriting to be too obvious.

Here is the finished canvas (yes, now definitely finished!) 

Woah that was a long post!

Thanks for stopping by - and as its now May I'll be moving onto a new colour and 2 new letters very soon.... 

xx

Share:

ACP:2, artemio, canvas, die cutting, fresco finish, hexagons, journaling, quickutz, sizzix, stenciling