Print Madness

Another gelli print day.  Spring is arriving in Texas and we had a productive afternoon in Kathy's sunny studio.  We can hear birds singing and dogs barking and the neighbor's fan squeaking.  It is lovely and warm.

We have watched several videos showing gelli printing.  We get to work and discover we are having several issues:

1.  The paint is too thin

2.  The paint is dries too fast

3.  The paper is too thin

4.  We are using too much paint

5.  The gelli plates are getting sticky

6.  Unmanned brayers roll off the table and onto the floor

7.  Holding on to a soapy gelli plate is like trying to hold on to a soapy baby with no arms or legs.

So we watched some more videos and ate some chocolate cake....and then a miracle occurred.  We corrected our approach and discovered that we are picking up color from previous prints with a wonderful distressed look.  Heavier paper, less paint, no baby wipes, parking breaks on the brayers and we are in business.  

MARCH MESSINESS

March 8, 2014

March is here already and we decided to make this our messy month! Painting it is….On paper, fabric, our clothing, and ourselves!  We started out very organized with paper on the painting surface and aprons over our clothes. Good start. Well, that lasted about five minutes before we had stuff everywhere.

Neat and organized!

Both of us had purchased a Gelli Printing Plate and had never used it. We saw a demonstration of many techniques using it at the Houston Quilt Show last year and were duly impressed. We had to have it. That was in November. So here it is, March, and of course neither one of us could remember any of the cool techniques. YouTube here we come. After some time watching videos and taking notes, we thought we had it figured out enough to give it a shot. I don’t know if we did anything right but we sure had a great time doing it.

Gelli plate on the left, corn on the right

We started this blog to “use up our stuff” but we have run into a bit of a dilemma with this month’s activity. Yes, we used paper, paint, stamps, stencils, even an ear of corn….But now we have a pile of really awesome printed paper that we have to “use up”!! Now what?

The aftermath