Swirls and Twirls

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."   Scott Adams

Recently I saw some photos in one of my Facebook groups that showed tangling on prints made with a gelli plate. If you've been hiding under a rock and have never heard of the gelli plate, you can find out all about it here. I got a gelli plate about a year ago, with the intent of making prints that I could tangle on. At that time I did a blog post showing a print that I tangled. I was a little frustrated with the fact that I didn't like most of the prints I had made.

But I was inspired by what I saw on Facebook and decided to unearth my gelli plate. And again I was frustrated by all the "bad" prints that I pulled. Since my sole purpose was to make prints I could tangle on, I needed to keep them fairly simple. If I used too many colors, stencils, tools, etc., the print would be too busy to tangle. So after many attempts, I realized that the ones I did like were mostly done using wedges... comb-like tools that I have. And just the wedges with nothing else. Keep it simple.

Here's one that I thought would work. Unfortunately I forgot to scan it before I started, so this shows the beginning of my tangling.

And here it is after tangling.

The next one was done using a wedge with "teeth" that are much narrower, for a very different look.

I chose to use just two patterns for this one.

I do like the way these look but wish I felt more comfortable and confident with the gelli plate. I really need to take a class, but as far as I know there are none offered where I live. I ended up with a few more prints that I feel have potential, and I've put them aside to try another time.

Gelli on my Plate

"Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous."  Bill Moyers

A few weeks ago I got a  Gelli Arts printing plate as a Hanukkah present from my husband. It wasn't a total surprise since it was on my short wish list, but nevertheless I was very excited to see it. I'd read all about it and seen many videos and pictures of prints that people had made with it. I was intrigued and figured there must be lots of ways to incorporate Zentangle with these types of prints.

For those of you who aren't familiar with a gel printing plate, you should check out my link above, but in a nutshell, it is a printing plate made out of a gel-like plastic. You apply acrylic paint to the surface and then add and subtract color and designs using many different kinds of tools, stencils, brushes, etc. Then you lay paper on top of it, rub with your hands, and lift the paper off with the print on it.

A couple of days ago it was time to play. I pulled out my small supply of acrylic paints, a pile of white cardstock, some stencils, and some wedges (the wedges were a gift from my daughter). I won't explain the process here since I certainly don't claim to be an expert, and there are plenty of videos to watch online of people who have a better idea of what they're doing. But I will say that I went through lots of paper, and was not happy with most of the prints I made. Here's a picture of one of only a couple of prints that I liked.

 
I used a tulip stencil from Joggles, a wedge, and another flower stencil from Crafters Workshop. I painted, brayered (to roll the paint over the gelli plate), stenciled, and printed, then painted some more, brayered some more, stenciled some more, and printed again. Adding layers gives it lots of depth, but unfortunately I was not always satisfied with my combinations. In the above picture I got the results I was going for - white tulips to tangle with a colorful, layered background.

So next (after lots of cleanup) it was on to the tangling. At this point (probably a little late to be thinking about it), I wasn't sure how my Microns would work on top of all the layers of acrylic paint. I've worked on water color before, but never acrylic. Luckily I had no problem with the pen. When I was done tangling I wasn't so sure whether or not they looked like tulips or just lollipops! I outlined the petals which helped give them more definition....still not sure if I should grow them or eat them.

Then I decided to try some pencil shading, not so sure how that would work on top of the paint. But again, like with the pen, I was pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out. I don't know if it's really visible in the picture below, but the shading did help to give the flowers some more definition.

Admittedly, I need to do lots more playing with the Gelli Plate to get better at it. There's always a learning curve when trying a new product. I have a couple of ideas up my sleeve for next time, in an attempt to make the tangling stand out more. I'll let you know how it goes.

My Tangled Life

"Whatever you are, be a good one."   Abraham Lincoln

This year I am participating in a Facebook group called "Our Tangled Lives." It's a group for art journaling combined with Zentangle (along with whatever else you want to include). I figure this will be a good opportunity to use some of the art supplies in my stash, that have been patiently sitting on my shelves. There will be a new prompt every week, and the prompt for this second week is "Choose an existing poem or quote, or write words that reflect your current beliefs/hopes/wants for your artistic practice." 

I chose the quote, "Whatever you are, be a good one," from Abe Lincoln. My feeling is that whatever you do, whether in art, your job, your family, or life in general, you should put your all into it, and not do it half-heartedly. A suggestion for the journal page was to frame the quote in some way. That made me think of a gelli plate print I did a few weeks ago, where the lines kind of framed an area where I could include the quote. Here's a picture of the print, which I had to cut down to fit into my journal which is 5 x 8 1/2 inches. This was printed using gold and silver acrylic paints, although the silver looks a little more like white in the pictures. In case you missed my post last month about tangling on gelli prints, you can see it here.

I drew Knightsbridge (checkerboard) to emphasize the frame, added some more tangles, and here is my page which has since been glued into my journal.

I'm sure I'll be posting some more of my journal pages as the year goes on, but in the meantime, remember...Whatever you are, be a good one!