gel printing wrap up!

it's hard for me to express how amazingly quickly the whole entire month of march FLEW past!!! probably because i used every spare moment --and a few that technically weren't spare because i was actually supposed to be doing something else entirely, lol-- gel printing. here now, the last lot of those essperiments!

day 24: leaves

on this day i pretty frankly cheated. because birgit koopsen posted this amazing video of how to do transfer prints from books and magazines on the gel plate... (you really should go watch the video, even if you don't have much interest in gel printing!) ...and after i saw it, that's all i wanted to do. the technique doesn't always work. you need to have just the right combo of ink (in the illustration) and paint (on your plate); and frankly i'm still not that great at predicting when that will happen. i had a blast playing with the idea though. and i know i'm going to do it again and again.

(there are some leaves that you can very nearly almost see in the green print and the purple one!)

day 25: foam stamps

we were meant to use homemade foam stamps. which i realize are easy to make... if you have craft foam. i thought i had some. but apparently not. luckily, there are some really nice pre-made foam stamps out there, like this hollyhocks one from donna downey.

day 26: from the hardware store

there are some INCREDIBLE prints for this prompt in the #31daysofgelprinting hashtag on instagram. seriously, some of the most creative ones of the whole month! i just kind of froze, lol. then i remembered that home depot is a bit like a hardware store, right? (just go with me, kthx?) and that i had some big paint chip folders and drywall tape from home depot. so i'm calling that good.

day 27: cardboard

i stripped the top layer off some corrugated cardboard to make a couple of texture tools: one flat, the other rolled up and taped together. i also printed ON cardboard which i really like the look of.

day 28: comb

i used a ridgey texture tool to mix quinacridone magenta and hansa yellow. i was expecting a sort of pinky-orange and got... FLAMES, lol! 

day 29: egg carton

i think i might have to write in to wegman's and complain that their egg cartons leave a much less interesting imprint than those of other egg cartons throughout the world. because of all the samples i've seen for this prompt, mine are my least favorite, lol. 

(they were admittedly lots of fun to make, however!)

day 30: water soluble crayons

ironically, i was at the ink pad on wednesday standing next to a pack of dina wakley's scribble sticks feeling *VERY* tempted. but i resisted the purchase because i have plenty of gelato crayons, which i thought were pretty close to the same consistency. they aren't. but i managed to make them work (sorta!) with the gel plate by lightly spritzing my triangular mini plate with water, then coloring the plate with a gelato, then stamping the triangle through an admittedly awesome stencil that my friend josh pointed out looks a bit like the interior of a colorfully redecorated TARDIS! ♥♥♥

day 31: primary colors

shocking true confession: despite a growing collection of heavy body acrylic paints, it turns out i don't actually own a true RED. so quinacridone magenta once again kindly stands in and does (i think) quite a creditable job anchoring my mondrian-inspired color blocks. you may have guessed that "dank je" means "thank you" in dutch, which is the first language of birgit koopsen who so kindly hosted this entire month of gel printing awesomeness!

and there you go, the month is DONE! at the suggestion of someone from the very cool gelatin printing enthusiasts' group on facebook i made a flip-through flipagram of the altered book which holds all of my prints for the month. you can see it on facebook or instagram! meanwhile, the 31 days of gel printing label gets you all of the blogposts conveniently grouped together, should you need them. (possibly a great cure for insomnia, lol!)

♥♥♥

wishing everyone who's reading this a very happy:

easter

passover

april fool's day

sunday

(please select all that apply!)

♥♥♥