Alternative Gelli Plate Prints

At our open studio this morning we played around with an alternative Gelli Plate printing technique, using stencils from my good friend Cecilia Swatton, via Stencil Girl.  Along with a variety of texture tools, these were some of the prints that were made.  Totally had a great time and will be making some fun and funky jewelry next week from these awesome papers.

 

 

Welcome to the Artistcellar Blog Hop!

It is my privilege to participate in this current Artistcellar Blog Hop and Thank You for joining in on the fun.  I hope you have had a chance to visit all the other blogs on the list of participants (see below if you missed one!) and I hope you left comments along the way to be entered for a chance to WIN this amazing stencil set!  If you leave me a comment before midnight, Oct. 31st, I will enter your name in my drawing as well.  Please be sure to leave me a way to contact you along with your comment.  (If I cannot contact you, I have to disqualify you and I want everyone to have a chance at WINNING!)  Please visit the Artistcellar website to view many more designs and get your creative Mojo on!  The other Participants are:

Oct. 25^th – Lisa Cousineau (Artistscellar) Official Start Date of this wonderful Blog Hop!
Oct. 26^th – Effy Wild
Oct. 27^th – Lisa Chin
Oct. 28^th – Cheryl Sleboda
Oct. 29^th – Paula Phillips
Oct. 30^th –Cindy Powell (YOU ARE HERE)
Oct. 31^st –Cecilia Swatton

My technique for using Cecilia Swatton’s “Kaleidoscope Series” of stencils involves something unusual.  It involves the art of watercolor.  Much like acrylic painting, watercolor is a fascinating medium in that it is usually transparent and can be removed. 

 

In order to design backgrounds in a free form painting, I like to incorporate a variety of techniques but one of my favorites is removing paint through a stencil so that it leaves an imprint of the stencil behind.  (Similar to a ghost image if done correctly) 

 

Since I am using a 140 lb. watercolor paper I must be careful not to scrub the paint off, but gently remove it with a slightly damp sponge.  If the sponge is too wet, it will seep under the stencil and create an undesired effect.  (Just like too much paint on your brush). 

Another way to remove watercolor from the paper is to use a baby wipe, but these are moist towelettes, so if using them, this process needs to be done carefully.  Moisture from the towelette will seep under the stencil, but if you blot it on a paper towel first-like a sponge, it can be used with wonderful results.

 

I have used Cecilia’s stencil collection for many art projects including of course the Gelli Printing Plate to create background pages for art journals.  I won’t go into details as there is an over abundance of information out on the web about this topic.  But I will give you a tip:  I paint a lot of paintings on some of the most fabulous papers, but, not every painting is a keeper.  I never throw them out; I recycle them into awesome art journals by applying acrylics & stencil patterns over them.  Once bound, they become books full of ideas for future projects and experiments.

Whatever medium you use, stencils can add such interesting depth to your work, so I hope you will give this a try in your art journal or fine art piece.  Experiment and have fun with these unique stencils by Cecilia.  Don't forget to leave me a comment below to be entered to win one of these wonderful sets.  Or browse the Artistscellar website for more designs.

A New Blog

My local watercolor guild here in Sandy Utah is interested in having an on-line presence and sharing their work in one central place that is easy enough that all can participate.  I have been working on getting the blog set up and will be adding more fun things soon.  Please take a moment to go explore the home page, along with an experiment for textures page and get signed up to follow us by e-mail.  The guild's new blog address is:  Sandy WC Guild  (Click the name and it will take you to the blog). 
This blog isn't just about watercolor, it will feature many other things.

All water/wet media will be included, along with monthly challenges for our show & tell (which I hope we will start doing at our local monthly meetings beginning 2014),  (you can play along with these challenges too and post your results on your blog!  Simply leave us a link in the comments.) There are additional pages that share experimental results at the moment, but I will be posting techniques for: stenciling, carving textures, acrylics, inks, book reviews, etc. etc.  The possibilities are endless.  Please join us and don't forget to leave comments! 
Feedback is always monitored due to spammers, so your comments will not appear until they have been approved.  You may also share a link to your own website or blog in your comment.  We would love to venture over and take a peek at what you are creating. 
If you are interested in sharing a technique you have created, or a link to a good video you think would help inspire us, please leave the link in the comments and I will check it out.  If you host free tutorials, we would love to know about them, if you have written a book, a pdf zine or an e-book, again we would love to know about it. 
I recently set up a Facebook Group as well, but to keep life simple for me, I will be posting only to this blog and to the Sandy WC Guild blog.  No sense in duplicating my efforts. 
Not sure I shared this work in progress (above) with you all yet, but this is an enlarged area of berries in a bush taken from a photo I took up in Idaho at a fish hatchery.  I got kind of carried away with making the little streets on the leaves to make them look like maps viewed from space.  So, OK, I'm not always "photo realistic".  :-D

Another Creative Art Book Review



If you love surface design, making altered books or even art journaling, along with incorporating snippets of fibers and adding various textures, this is the book for you.  It is chock-full of ideas to give you plenty of inspiration for utilizing texture, color, fibers, design elements, resists, "Brusho" (a product from the UK which is fabric dye in powder form-use caution), oil paint-sticks, wax, papers and options for recycling products we all have available.  This book covers multiple projects and materials such as: mark-making, block printing, mono-printing, hot & cold wax, tie dying, collage and guess what-this is only half of what the book covers! 
The other half of this book will give you plenty of ideas for hand & machine stitching, embellishing, fabric manipulation, applique and ideas for creating your own unique textiles.  Plenty of eye candy to get your thought processes working, so grab your copy today!

New Discovery

Today I went to Paris!  I went in search of an amazing artist named: Louis Boudreault who is an artist who works in paper collage.  I adore his work.  Here is a small sample of the amazing work he does.  Simplicity at its finest.  His website hosts many more visually inspiring works so, I hope you will go visit Paris today too! 

Cleaning House

Actually I'm de-cluttering, de-hoarding my studio-workspace.  It is extremely time consuming since I have so much crammed into such a tiny space, that it is near impossible to remember where everything is.  Shelves and shelves of supplies hidden away in chipboard shoe boxes.  Not any more!  I replaced those shoe boxes with see-through shoe boxes so that I can see at a glance, where everything is.  The clutter is still there, but better organized. 




So, I also hoard cardboard, chipboard and a variety of vintage papers that I need to dispose of, so I am going to make art journals from these recycled materials.  Using my digital software and the custom shape tools, I can create some interesting journals, which I love to use.  (I hoard these little journal beauties too!) 

More Washed Out Ink Projects

 I had so much fun with this washed out technique that my daughter and I decided to experiment on a couple of those journal tablets, the cardboard covered comp books and this is what we came up with.  She used a wonderful scrapbooking paper stencil which really gave her lots of pattern.  She said her bookcover looks like silver foil where the spray paint is and I used a 4 pattern page of stencils that came in a kit of 8 patterns.  It's been fun having an art partner again these past few weeks!

Update on New Technique

In the post below, this started out with some beautiful colors, a stencil of Koi and another stencil of a square pattern that I picked up at the $ store.  Here it is with a wash of Chinese Sumi Ink, spray painted using a Cherry Blossom Stencil & Kanji lettering.  Then the ink is removed with water and the final version is highlighted with additional paints to brighten some of the colors again.  This technique was tons of fun, messy as all get out and the end results worth the effort.  I hope you will find time to play and follow along with Gary's tutorial.  The link to join the Loving Mixed Media group is in the other post below.  Have fun!

Earring Swap

Lesley is hosting an earring swap over at the Latest Trends. Rusty &/or found objects. Here's a pic of the earrings I made for this swap. I really had fun hunting down the elements to use for these. Somewhere along the line, I managed to either trade for these awesome green flowers or bought them in a bag of other goodies at a yard sale. The cameos were actually buttons that I removed the back of and the red discs are wooden circles that I inked. Join the group and sign up for this swap, there are some pretty amazing earrings already being posted, of which I wouldn't mind wearing!

April's Designer Paper Technique

Grab yourself some old magazines and have some fun tearing out the pages for this awesome paper technique! Sort your pages by color and group them with colors that compliment eachother. Use watercolor paper or thin cardboard as a substrate and decoupage your torn papers on randomly. To texturize, apply gel medium, (not heavy body) and rake through it with a fork or other impliment. Add a colored glaze, 3-5 times and you are done. You can then dry brush on some gesso or metallic paints, whatever your heart desires. Make sure you allow plenty of drying time between each layer of a wet application.