Gelli-plate printing during Open Studios

Printing materials - strawberry and bubblewrap

Open Studios finished last night and today my studio is getting back to normal.  During the week I had some tables set up so visitors could try mono-printing using gelli-plates.  Rachel enjoyed it so much she came twice and got greatly in the spirit of it trying to mark make with strawberries.  It did work, but they tasted so nice, I ate them rather than print with them!

Mark making with the strawberry on the gelli-plate

When I cleared up yesterday evening, there was a lovely pile of prints that I had made as demonstration pieces.  Although they are only on cheap copier paper, I really like some of them and they will make great backgrounds for some artwork or perhaps to be turned into artists books.  I do like the prints on better quality paper, but it is good to see that you can achieve satisfactory results with the basics. 

Rachel with the strawberry print

All three of my children eventually had a go and it was great to see the effects the boys achieved by just drawing very quickly into the paint on the gelli-plate before printing.  Watching the immediacy of the kids printing is very inspiring – sometimes I spend too much time thinking, whereas they just go for it, without caring too much.

Some of my gelli-prints mixed in with the children's

So now, I’m trying to get back to normal and am working on a new big piece which I started last week.  I also have the first C&GCertificate class starting on Thursday, which is very exciting.  I have virtually everything ready for it, just got to get the house tidied now before the students arrive.  I’m sure most times the C&G comes up I’m going to regret running it in my home studio as I need to tidy the house, but secretly that was one of my goals with running it from home to try and force me to be tidier!  I just hope it rubs off on the rest of the family...

Working on the new piece