Another art journal

 I've been working on another little journal as a spin-off from one of the lessons from the art journal course.  It's something I work on every now and again.  

The cover is a 'ghost print' from a gel plate printing session.

This page started as a pastel watercolour background which was decorated with drawn flowers.  The rest of the background was painted with dark blue acrylic paint.

On the right hand page I cut some flaps and added a stamped image.

This page started as a gel print, which was stencilled over, adding paint pen marks and gold squiggles. 

On these pages, there is a collage and a page with a pocket.

Here is the pocket page without the folded paper.  I really enjoyed drawing all the different lines within the circles as it is a very meditative activity.

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.

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.

Wanderlust 2023 - weeks forty-one to forty-nine - Monoprinting and carving

I was really looking forward to the final focus of monoprinting and carving and I really did enjoy it.  The first week was looking at different kinds of carving and printing  and we used stencils on the gel plate, heat sensitive printing foam (where you heat the foam, press an object into it and an image is created.  When you have finished, you heat the foam again and the image disappears. I used some japanese anemone seedheads), foam shapes on a kitchen roll inner and a lino print.

My linoprint was of honesty seedheads, from a calendar - 'silver pennies'.

The next week was making papers using the gel plate and then creating a collage image.  My papers included corrugated cardboard, my own foam stamping plates, bubble wrap and my own stamps.  I chose the tree as we were enjoying nice autmnal weather.

Week forty three was using charcoal and then oil pastels on the gel plate. I had wanted to try using charcoal on the plate, but just hadn't got round to it, so this was my chance.  We used a photo to trace over using the charcoal and then stuck the image to the gel plate.  We then made some 'wonky people' using oil pastels, which was a bit of a trial and error process, but I got there in the end.

We then had to represent a favourite place using gel plates and bearing value and contrast in mind.  My place (not that you'd know from the image) is Haddon Hall. The little bridge is represented by the arches, the swirls are roses, the wavy lines are the river, the castellations are just that, and the diamonds are the window panes.  I wasn't sure I had chosen the right colours, or that I had enough contrast... 

...but when I desaturated the image, it looked better than I thought.  There are light and dark areas.

We next made a lino print again from a photo and made decisions about how much to take away or whether to add patterns.  I was really pleased with this. I made a frame for the image with gel plate printed patterns.

For this week, we used a gel printed background which was a very colourful one.  We then painted out a lot of the colour using black acrylic.  I used a face stencils for my version and was pleased with how it turned out. I like the change of colours from warm to cool.

For the penultimate week, we took our inspiration from Matisse's paper cuts and designed our image using cut out paper.   We then made a lino print of the image and printed it on paper and material.  I decorated the paper print with acrylic pens and stitched over the material version.  

I used three stitches: backstitch, split stitch and french knots.  It took a while but the result was worth it.

The final week was just having fun with colour, so I did!

There was also a wrap up week, where we were encouraged to bind any loose pages and then make a cover for the journal. I need to decorate my cover, so shall do that shortly.

This year has been about experimenting with different media and I have learned a lot. I have found some lovely techniques and will be using them again in the future.  I have embraced some media, such as pastels, which I didn't think I liked.  

Most recently, I have rediscovered my love for lino printing and collage and this is an area I really want to develop, so this will be a focus next year.  I have also signed up to Wanderlust again next year, so it will be interesting to see what that will bring.

Artful August Challenge - in January! Week Four to end

Here is the final week (and a bit) from the daily challenge I did in January.  'Person' was a gel plate printed background, then masked shapes and Payne's Grey acrylic paint with white dots. This is a technique I have done before, but it's a good one.

For 'Shape', I knew I wanted to cut a shape into the page, so with a bit of advice from Chris, I did this.   I die cut shapes from painty papers and  made this colourful page.  You can glimpse a future page through the rectangle window.

'Type' was made using some interesting font stamps from my stash and a typewriter stamp from Visible image.  

I used some of my own stamped 'Tissue' paper as the background and added shapes in translucent paint.

'Botanical' was inspired by a page from a flower book which I made into the pocket.  

Inside the pocket I added a card.

I used stamps and embossing powder to demonstrate 'Resist'.  

I went with a vintage feel for 'Travel', just using stamps and ink. 

I enjoy creating 'Drip' and it's something that I use in my art journaling too.  This one used sparkle watercolour inks.

Two of my favourite books made up the background for 'Book' - 'Persuasion' and 'The Secret Garden'.

'Vintage' meant I could look through my many digikits and find some suitable images.  I added an embossed frame and a snippet of material with a button.

The back of the journal was covered with an alcohol ink gel print.

The front was stamped and had a die cut title added.

Finally, the inside cover was stamped and the prompts list was added.

This was such an enjoyable project to do during January and I may well look out for it again this August, for January 2024!
 

Index-Card-A-Day challenge (ICAD) 2022 - Week 4

The ICAD challenge is speeding along nicely this year.  Above from top left there is: Pineapple; Purple; Print (a ghost print from a recent gel plate session - I always seem to like the ghost prints more than the actual prints!)

From top left: Portmanteau (I chose the section in Alice Through the Looking Glass where Humpty Dumpty is explaining what the words in Jabberwocky mean and uses the word 'portmanteau'); Poem which is The Way through the Woods by Rudyard Kipling.  This poem left a big impression on me when I first read it at school and I have featured it before on my blog. It is a bit melancholy, remembering times past and seeing nature taking hold again but also has a slightly mysterious feel. I love the rhythm of the words too, "You can hear the beat of a horse's feet, And the swish of a skirt in the dew".  At the bottom is: Plaid (using two dies cuts layered up) and Parachute.

Lots more to come - we are nearly half way through.

Index Card a Day Challenge (ICAD) 2022 - Week 3

Week three of this challenge is done  - the time is going fast!  Above there is (from top left): Mix and Match (I did some paper weaving); Jukebox; Mango (with a gel print background) and Bitmap or Half Tone. 

Here is Selvedge (I scanned some of my material stash into the computer) ; Ouija Board and Solstice.  Again, all pretty literal interpretations, but enjoyable to do nonetheless.