New gel printing techniques and other projects

For my sister's birthday card, I took inspiration from the new collage book I bought.  There is a post about it here.  I used some of my painted papers, cut the shapes out and decorated them.  I hope she liked it!

I have also been enjoying Clare Cosens Designs on Youtube. Her videos are clear and easy to follow and she is a great teacher.  I watched her video on layering using stencils and had a go myself.  My paints beaded up a little on the gel plate, rather than being a flat layer, but I like the end result. The secret with this technique is to let each layer dry thoroughly, before adding the next.

Here is my other experiment with this technique.  It is one I will use a lot, I think, although waiting for the paint to dry takes patience, especially when you want to add the next layer!

I really enjoyed the Gel Printers Summit where every day, a different gel printer presented a different technique.  Some really appealed to me, especially one by Sarah Jane Gordon.  She used seaweed,  stencils and fossils to create a layered print, and by using printing inks, which stay wet for a long time, you could work directly on the plate.   I had some printing inks which I use for lino printing, but I hadn't used them on the gel plate. They wash out with water so are much better than the inks I had to use at school and college, which could only be cleaned using white spirit.   

Here are some of my first attempts, using stencils and stamps. 

I do like the layering effect and I wasn't waiting for layers to dry, so it was a less time-consuming process.  Again, I am sure I will get better with practise.

The ghost prints were still rather nice too.  Gel Printers Summit gave me a lot of information and I shall revisit some of the videos as they were packed full of tips and techniques along with the projects. While gel plates are very forgiving and a beginner printer can make some amazing images, I hope that as I improve, I will make more considered decisions and end up with some lovely prints.

An Autumn bouquet

On his return from shopping last week, my lovely husband presented me with these flowers 'just because'.  They are such autumnal colours.  

There was an ornamental cabbage included which is in its own vase, because they can start to small rather nasty after a while, so I hope that will help it to keep fresher.  I was really touched by this bouquet and have been enjoying the colours all this week. 

Wanderlust 2024 - weeks thirty-three to forty - Drawing

 The Drawing theme has been an interesting one, with some weeks I enjoyed much more than others.  

This first week in the theme was about choosing a painting and then removing parts of it to add our own mark, tracing over the shapes.  I chose this Waterhouse girl and kept her head, hands and feet but then added to her sleeves and dress.

Week thirty-four found us drawing with different pencils - H through to 6B in my case, although I used 2B most. We looked at the work of Francoise Gilot, who was a muse to Picasso as well as his partner for ten years.  A blending stump (which I hadn't really used that much before) was used to create the shadows and shading and I was pleased with my results.

I loved using photographs and drawing with a waterproof pen in a loose style, before adding watercolours.  Haddon Hall on the left, my front door on the right.  This was a lesson from Kate Crane, who I am a fan of.

We had to draw a self-portrait in pencil crayon for the following week and I did not enjoy that at all. I don't like seeing myself in photos and then to have to draw myself too - ugh!  I wasn't happy with the end result, so covered it with gesso and then covered that with tracing paper and marks.  It is there on the left hand side, but you can't really see it anymore, which is a blessing!  It's my 'Branwell' portrait (the famous one Branwell Bronte painted of himself and his sisters and then painted himself out. You can see it here.)

Drawing a tree using inks and a bamboo pen and sticks and then adding in crayons was the next week.  Not one of my favourites.

Illustrating a list of things we could choose from various prompts was much more up my street.  We had two colours and could layer them up to add shadows as needed.  

We gathered leaves and flowers from our gardens, or went on a walk and then used repetition of shapes in different sizes to create these botanical-looking things. It was all about being loose and not over thinking.  I like the swirly background I made.

The final week was the 'Artful Musings' where an artist talks about their life and art.  They usually show a piece of their art which can be used as inspiration.  However, this was botanicals again, so I decided to keep with the drawing theme and try an exercise from Sketchbook Revival this year.  We used a viewfinder (2 x 2 inches) to locate interesting images and text from a magazine and these were cut out and stuck onto the journal page.  We then turned the page upside down and drew what we saw.  We could then add colour to the images. It was very freeing, as I was looking at shapes and lines in the images, so didn't get hung up on trying to make the drawing look like a coat or whatever it was.  

Here it is the right way up. 

We now move to the final theme this year, which is Alternatives.  We shall see what that brings...

New and inspiring books and courses

 I have been enjoying Sketchbook Revival, hosted by Karen Arbend again this year.  It is a free 15 day inspirational set of videos - two per day -  from different tutors with ideas for adding to sketchbooks/art practice.  They all offer a free gift, which usually involves signing up to their websites, but this is no hardship for those that particularly interest you.  I was reminded about this by Amy Maricle, whose weekly slow drawing tutorials I follow, was offering a video again this year.  The videos are available until 19th October for free but if you would like access after that date, you will need to pay.  I have made lots of notes,  as there are many techniques and ideas from the teachers that I would like to try.  

One video was by Lucie Duclos and it was really inspiring to me. I found that she has a book out, so that was straight on my list.  She has a mid-century vibe and uses collage and doodling to create her art works.

Here it is. It is certainly one of the best books I have bought as the images are eminently do-able (and I have all the materials required) and her step by step guidance is really good. Of course, it looks simple, but is all about the placement of the collage, which will no doubt take time to really be good at.

The vase collage she showed in the video is in the book and isn't it fabulous? I am really excited to be able to create pictures (and cards) like this.

Here's another one which looks really complicated, but is broken down into simple steps. She also gives ideas for changing the images and creating different pictures, so there is a lot to enjoy.

This is the other book I had to buy, as it combines abstract watercolours with doodling.  There a few 'flip through' videos of this book on Youtube, which give a good overview of the book. 

Here is just one of the pages, showing what she can do.  I love using watercolours and adding doodled elements will be very relaxing, I think. 

Now, I just need to make some time to play and practise.  I have signed up to some online courses; the Gel Printers Summit which starts tomorrow, the Gratitude Journal, which starts on 1st November and two others with one of the teachers from Sketchbook Revival, (Andrea Garvey), called the 'Travelling Sketchbook' and 'Colourplay'.  I am still doing my art journaling course and my Whimsies, Words and Watercolours' course too, so I have no excuse not to have something creative to do! (Fitting it all in is going to be the challenge but it is a nice challenge to have.)

Hydrangeas and other plants

The hydrangeas are starting to take on their autumn colours.  Above is a Dwarf white macrophylla.

The shades of pink are just starting to appear on Sundae Fraise.

They are more evident on Pinky Winky (a not so great name for a lovely plant!).

The tri-coloured hibiscus has only seemed to have two sorts of flowers this year, with the pink dominating.

The occasional white/pink flower has been lovely and there are still a couple on the plant today.

Muscari Valerie Finnis are starting to grow again.

Clematis Wyevale has been divided this year and is flowering away happily, with its soap-like scent.

At the front of the house, Choisya White Dazzler is flowering again.  There are only a few  flowers, but they are most welcome.

Finally, this hydrangea, Magical Revolution Pink, is putting on an amazing show.  It should be in a bigger pot and it got hydrangea scale earlier in the year, but look at it now!

The flowers have turned from a baby pink to this raspberry ripple colour, with touches of green.  It is a lovely sight to be greeted with when I get home!

Late summer sunshine

We have been lucky to have some late summer sunshine this last week, accompanied by some blue skies and it has been lovely.  

The perennial sunflower Helianthus Lemon Queen is certainly enjoying it...

...as are the bees.  Spot the action shot bee flying to the next flower!

There haven't been that many bees or butterflies this summer, due to the wet and cold Spring, but they were out in the sun busily gathering pollen and nectar.

I stood watching and photographing them for quite a while.  They seem to be mainly buff tailed bumble bees from what I can make out.  (Even today, on a very grey and cloudy morning, the bees are still drawn to the helianthus.)

Other flowers enjoying the weather are the Asters.  They have another name now, but will always be asters to me.  Here are September Ruby (I think) and Little Carlow.

A couple of clematis are flowering again too.  Above is Prince Charles...

...and here is Blue Angel.

Finally, in other news, I may have seen a Japanese Anemone, 'Ruffled Swan', on another blog and instantly fallen in love with it.  I have since bought one for myself and it is above.  I particularly like the pale blue/purple backs to the flowers.  The photo is an interesting one as the plant is on the little north facing patio in a big pot, and it was a sunny day when I took this photo, but as you know, my camera doesn't like low light levels, so produced this shot.  The darkness around the plant does make the flowers really sing out though!

Wanderlust 2024 - weeks twenty-five to thirty-two - Printmaking

I was looking forward to this theme of the Wanderlust 2024 course and I have enjoyed it. The first week included some rust dyeing which I had not done before, so that was an interesting start.  We incorporated the images into the page.  There was also making a printing block using crumpled packing tape and doing some gel printing.  The focal image was a print from a polystyrene tile which we incised.  I was pleased with how the page came together. 

Week twenty-six was all about carving our own stamps set and we had to create three squares which would be printed over each other.  The next thing was to print a repeat pattern which I found a bit of a challenge and I didn't get it quite right on the finished page, but I still like the end result and enjoyed carving the three stamps.  

I went full on grunge with my next page, using household objects to print on a gel plate.  I used a few lids and a plastic cover from a plug, as well as some bubble wrap.

Creating fern prints was the focus of the next week, using the fern leaves on a gel plate as well as using the leaf as a stamp too. We then had to cut the prints into strips and weave them. 

Making our own foam stamps was the next focus and I liked adding the bright neons to this page which is one of the most vibrant I have made this year.

Making transfer prints from photos and magazines was the technique here.  The photo which I transferred onto a book page (on the left) shows three of my great uncles, around the time of the First World War.

We had to find a photo of a person which appealed to us for the next week. I chose this girl as I like her attitude.  Once she was cut out of the background, we had to fill it in with descriptions of ourselves - Chris provided the words for mine.  We could then add colour to the image and other details as we wanted to. I really enjoyed this page and using old photographs.

For the 'artful musings' week, I chose to create a grid showing some of the techniques I have been using during the course this year.

Our next theme is 'Drawing' so it will be interesting to see what is featured and how I get on.