Tree silhouettes

I did this tree silhouette this evening as the wind is howling outside. Hope it cheers everyone up.

Call for Jane Christensen! You won a print from my free Gelli giveaway!

Hopefully you will see this post Jane. You may have missed the announcement that your name was selected (I decided to choose two lucky winners as I had entries both on this blog and through Facebook). I’d love to hear from you – or of any bloggers know Jane and could get the message out to her, I’d be really grateful. Thank you 🙂

Gelli Elephants blowing bubbles :-)

As well as making some stamps today out of clay, I found I was inspired to make a print of an elephant on my day off. First we went out for a scrumptious meal as we knew that our daughter wouldn’t be able to eat for a couple of hours after having some teeth out to prepare the way for braces. Obviously she wasn’t that interested in food today, but did manage some prawn crackers.

On our return from the dentist we considered watching the movie Water for Elephants – I love the fact that the elephant responds when the circus crew realise she doesn’t understand English. After a discussion, we opted instead of a James Bond movie starring Daniel Craig. It gave me time to do a bit of sewing and printing.

Don’t you just love those toe nails!

Still time to enter free giveaway!

Just a quick reminder that there’s still time to enter my free giveaway as part of the October Gelli Blog hop. Please comment whether you would like to win the turtle or lion original gelli print that I’ve showcased this week. There is also a mystery prize for the winner, picked at random after Friday’s closing date. Thank you everyone who has entered so far.

Also don’t forget to check out the other participants of the blog hop as there are some more freebies! Why not enter them all?

Meanwhile, here is an ATC (Artist Trading Card) I made and sent off recently to Australia as part of Be Creative Swap. I made it using a plaster rose and an attempt at quilling a rose bud. The brief set by Myfanwy Hart was to incorporate a tag in some way as part of the ATC.

Here is what I received in exchange 🙂

Birds on Gelliprint

Another bird Gelli to add to the collection with textures produced from leaves, scrunched up paper and layering of watercolours

The difference with this bird study and the others is that this time, I didn’t mask out the bird shapes first, but became inspired by the shapes I saw in the print when I pulled it off the plate.
You can see from this image (of a cat brooch I made and set against the background print) that there appears to be a bird shape appearing.

Similarly, where the hummingbird is, there was also an outline (but I didn’t have a photo of that stage to show!).

Introducing the October Gelli Print Blog Hop

Good morning everyone! Today starts with the introduction of a blog hop for everything Gelli! See below for details on the blogs taking part and hop over and have a look at what these lovely creative people are up to with their Gelli plates. As you can see from the list, it will be my turn on Friday, so be sure to drop by and hopefully be inspired – there will be a free giveaway to enter too :-). In the meantime, enjoy Michelle’s entry today and Joanna Grant’s tomorrow … There truly is some amazing/astonishing/artastic work out there!
Wednesday 15th Oct Michelle Reynolds http://shellsinthebush.blogspot.com.au/
Thursday 16th Oct Joanna Grant http://joannabananadesignoriginals.blogspot.com
Friday 17th Oct Jacques Williamos https://theelevatorpress.wordpress.com/
Saturday 18th Oct Linda Stokes http://www.lindastokes-textileartist.com/
Sunday 19th Oct Phillippa Montier http://pipart71.weebly.com
Monday 20th Oct Lauri Crowe http://www.laurijeancrowe.com
Tuesday 21st Oct Gail Schmidt http://www.shabbycottagestudio.net
Wednesday 22nd Oct Tami Sturm Howes Www.thisandthatfromtami.blogspot.com

Leaves for autumn

Despite the downpours this morning, I managed to collect several different shaped leaves to creat different effects on the print.

I particularly like this one, which has texture to it now the paint’s dried

I’m going to experiment with metal textures tomorrow, so please come back soon and check out the results 🙂

Preparing my next lino cut …

This sketch outline is of a friend’s cat – a ginger and white long-haired puddy cat that is so pretty I just wanted to capture it forever in print.

On this occasion I’m using soft white lino. I prefer it (although it’s more expensive) as it doesn’t crumble so easily and is more flexible to manipulate.

Returning to gelliplate printing … I thought I’d show you all a couple of prints I made today which took several layers of inking from the plate to build up the print. Managed to get my twelve-year-old to have a go after I’d finished too.

This leopard was created using a masking template of ripping up textured paper that I had previously used for another print. Some of the dotty texture transferred from the paper to the gelliplate and back to the paper again. I then added a fine outline using a brown fine liner pen just to give the cat a bit of an outline.

This is a print from the textured paper which was applied to the plate after it had been inked up, then removed. The impression left in the gelliplate then transferred over to the paper.

Walk like a dinosaur …

Dinosaurs have been the topic of conversation today … and Scooby Doo! A colleague leaving work today is off to celebrate her birthday in the next few days and we stumbled upon dinosaurs as she was browsing through my sketchbook (I was doodling Betty Boo during my lunchbreak while sipping a tomato soup) and she asked if I drew dinosaurs. Well I thought, I’ll give it a go, but I went a step further and made a lino print for her 🙂

Now, I know not everyone has their own printing press, so I thought you might like to get your own hands covered in black ink and have a go at your own monoprints or lino cuts using things lying around your house that won’t cost too much. For example, you may have had linoleum put in the kitchen or bathroom. If you have offcuts from this, you could make a start on a lino cut. Over the next week or so, I’ll post some simple patterns which you could use to get you started, but I’m sure you could also find inspiration like I have done from objects found nearby as we are surrounded by shapes and patterns in fabrics, crockery, picture frames and so on that provide fantastic basis for designing.

On this occasion, I’ve used a terracotta piece of lino that came in a pack. This tends to crumble and creates powder, which means more clearing up compared to the white soft lino I’ve shown you with the gnome, dandelion and the houses in earlier posts.

As it’s dark outside and my side yard workshop doesn’t have electricity, I’ve done the prints indoors using a rolling pin (chased by my kitten) to press down on the gelli-plate or lino against the paper to create impressions and prints. Meanwhile, my husband has been busy working on my proper workshop space – transforming a garden shed (I’m so excited and he couldn’t wait to show my what he’d done while I was at work).

This is the sketched outline of my dinosaur, a stegosaurus 🙂

Cutting the lino using lino tools (which aren’t that expensive to buy). I used the same gauged tool throughout, but if I were creating an even bigger print, I would interchange the heads according to how much I planned to cut away.

I then played around with various acrylic colours on my gelliplate and added a few dandelions to provide a bit of texture.

Next I made several prints just using the dinosaur lino cut before putting the lino over a monoprint created from a gelliplate

All I’m going to add now is go and have fun. Try different textures and templates out and see what results you get. Some results may surprise you; some you might not like and some, I can assure you, you will love 🙂

Dog stamp and dandelion stamps

It’s an ex-colleague’s birthday and she has a dog that recently had an operation, so I crafted a lino cut, again 1.5 inches across to make her a token card. I experimented with adding a plain circle stamp to the page first, then applying the blackened lino cut over the top to create a sort of cameo.

Then I started playing around with pressing the lino into the Gelli-plate and then inking the stamp up and laying that directly on to the card to achieve different effects with the dog image being reversed.