Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Gelli Plate Printing


The process of mono typing on gelli plates is fast, easy and encourages experimentation and a certain amount of giggling. It is just what I wanted some months ago after emerging from a very focused several years of painting a specific subject matter in a specific style. I cleared the studio surfaces, invited friends in and began cutting stencils, rolling acrylic paint and generally making a mess.

Turns out it was just what the doctor ordered! Piles of leaves, ribbon, textured wall paper, the net bag my avocados come in, and anything textural that is flat enough to run through my press became covered in color. Each lent its magic to print after print, changing character time and again. 


This was done the week before Valentines Day, so of course I had to make a heart using a glue gun on wax paper to ink up and profess my love to the world!

Next week I'll share a few of the prints I made on black paper using metallic inks. They're weird and wonderful!

Saturday, March 18, 2017

Getting Inky!

My drying rack is full again!

I haven't posted in months, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been making artwork! After wrapping up my residency in early December I dove into the comings and goings of the holiday season with gusto. We traveled, hosted and made merry all over the place. Mid January I finally stepped out of the social swirl (a bit thicker around the middle) cleared the wrapping paper, ribbon and assorted boxes of my studio table and decided it was time to start making some art again.

The first thing I did was welcome some art friends into my studio to play. I had been so quiet and solitary there for the past 3 years that it felt lovely to fill my space with chatty creative friends who took to mono typing and printing with gelli plates like ducks to water. Over the course of several sessions we had generated literally hundreds of bright, beautiful prints, and a new band of budding printmakers.


Approaching art more playfully for a while has been a delight. I have experimented with some different painting techniques and materials with no particular end result in mind. I have also dipped back into my love of printmaking,  joining a group of printmakers who work out of a remarkably well equipped studio overseen by Vinita Voogd at GoldenWest College. There I have enjoyed returning to my long standing love of etchings.  Technical and process driven, creating plates and editions is delightfully different from the painting I have focused on for the last 6 years.

In following posts I will show you the variety of prints and paintings I have been having fun with lately.
See you again soon!