Guest Post: Stenciled Gelli Printed Variegated Arrow Strips with Ginger
November 19, 2014
Hi everyone! My name is Ginger Wilson and I am a mixed media and fiber artist. Today I am going to demonstrate creating some fun variegated arrow strips that could be used in collage, scrapbooking, or art journaling.
My first step is to use my gelli plate to create some variegated background papers. I like using a transparent fluid acrylic paint when gelli printing, but any acrylic paint will work. Here is a picture of my setup of my worktable.
For my first variegated paper, I used hansa yellow and quinacridone red-orange. I squirt about a quarter size of paint of each color on each half of the gelli plate. Starting on the yellow side, I roll my paint on only half of the plate with my brayer. I clean the excess paint off of my brayer by rolling it onto a piece of deli paper I have on my work table. Then, I then roll out the red on the other side of the gelli plate, leaving about 1/4" gap between the two colors. Again, I roll the extra paint onto a piece of deli paper.
Next, I roll my brayer up and down between the two colors, moving the roller slightly to the left and right of center to help blend the two colors.
Once I have the paints blended, I pull a print on deli paper. There is usually enough paint to do one more good print and one more weak print. I will pull prints until almost all the paint is off the plate so I can use it again with other colors.
I did another plate using three colors, two purples and a blue.
Once my variegated papers are dry, I paint my gelli plate with black acrylic using my brayer. I really like Liquitex Basics black, since I use a lot of it and it's very affordable. I clean my brayer on a piece of deli paper after applying the paint. Then I put Julie's "Chevron" stencil over the black paint. The arrows should go left and right, since I applied the paints on my background papers up and down, in order to get variegated arrows. I place my variegated paper face down on top of the plate and stencil, just eyeballing where the corners are to try to line up the paper and the plate. I rub the paper with my fingers to get into the grooves of the stencil. After removing the paper, there is usually enough paint to do at least one more print.
My favorite print, my "this is gold" print, is the next one. I remove my stencil off of the gelli plate. There is still paint on the gelli plate, where the stencil had been.
I lay one of my variegated papers on top of this and rub with my fingers and then pull the print. (If there is still enough paint on the gelli plate, I will pull a second print.)
After the papers have dried, I use my Fiskars paper trimmer to cut strips of arrows, making some of them wide and some more narrow.
I used some of these, as well as some other gelli prints, to collage this container I use for brushes. I love the look of it.
I hope you enjoyed this post, and hope you visit my blog at www.ginger-wilson.blogspot.com to see my experiments in gelli printing, mixed media, and fiber/textile art.
  |
My name is Ginger Wilson, and I am a self-proclaimed "art experimentalist". My art can range from gelli printing, to painting, to art quilts. I find so many techniques and materials interesting that I am drawn to try them all. One day I may be creating wet felted landscapes, the next I could be making an art quilt from synthetic materials to burn with my heat gun. My studio is as cluttered with supplies as my mind is with ideas, but I wouldn't have it any other way. You can follow my adventures on my blog, ginger-wilson.blogspot.com.