....and what a glorious morning it is here! It's gorgeous sunshine (which we've had for several mornings) AND the awful cold wind has dropped to a gentle breeze.....PERFICK!!!
Well, the new challenge over on the PaperArtsy Blog is for mono printing and it's finally spurred me on to get my hitherto pristine Gelli Plate(s) out and have a go. I bought the 8" x 10" one a couple of years ago and have never done more than get it out of the packaging to see what it felt like and put it back again, lol! I then bought a round one a year ago and hadn't used that either!!! Darcy's introductory post on Sunday was so interesting with lots of fabulous inspiration from various artists so yesterday I gave myself a playday and after watching a few videos (love watching Barbara Gray's from Clarity Stamps) I got out a selection of stencils and very old acrylic paints and tried them out on cheap copy paper. I didn't want to risk wasting my Fresco Finish paints on my first attempts and I knew I would have to try mixing with their retarder because they dry so fast (and it was very hot in my craftroom) so I gave the lumpy paints a lot of shaking a set to.
This is what I came up with.....
probably because of the age of the paints as much as my inexperience the top layer did not reactivate the lower layers and dried very quickly so failed to lift as it was supposed to but.......I actually loved it! Here's a little close up....
I ended up with lots of lovely unexpected texture and even a bit of spontaneous crackling ;-)!
I decided to turn the sheet into ATCs for a swap with some friends so glued it to some Prima packaging card and used PaperArtsy Lynne Perrella stamps over the top with Archival Ink. It was actually a shame to cover the printing up, lol, but here are the photos. (I have just noticed how the colours have changed with devices, the top pics were taken on my phone and are closer to true colours whilst the bottom were taken on camera, hmmm?)
Here's a couple of close ups of bits of printing detail that still show.
Ok, I'm off to link up to the PaperArtsy Challenge and it also fits a couple of other challenges I like (but never get time to enter) that have appropriate topics. Country View Crafts challenge (and they have a blog hop running this month too) is 'use a stencil'. Stamping Sensations topic is 'anything goes'.
Have a lovely day everyone.
Hugs
Lesley Xx
