Be Mine

I don't really "do" Valentines Day.  But I have been known to make cards and what a wonderful excuse to use my Gelli Plate!! 

I originally quartered a full sheet 22"x30" of Strathmore something or other - I wish the sheets had stickers on them so I knew what I bought - but I ended up having so much fun I cut up another sheet!

I used my new 12"x14" Gelli Plate and the cut up sheets were just slightly off size but it didn't matter to me - these cards are not going to be precise. 

I decided on my Valentine Palette

Applied the colour randomly

 Spread it using my Catalyst Wedge

And drew random hearts with the smooth end of a paint brush.

 This is the first print pulled - the paint is quite thick and textured in some spots - might make the doodles I have planned for these difficult to draw.  You can kind of see the metallic in the orange paint in these two photos below.

I pulled 3 prints total and also pulled a print in a small journal.  Here they are from first to last and you can see how the paint either was used up by the last one or it dried out. I like all the prints - for different reasons!!

I wasn't done so cut up another sheet and applied more paint - twice!!

  Here are the 8 prints I pulled - love them!! 

  A juicy detail showing the texture and a little bit of the sheen of the metallic orange.

And this one was my fave print!  Now I will let them dry and cut them into cards - then some doodling with my Sharpie Poster Paint pen.  I will take pics and post an update when I finish them. Do you have plans to make Valentines Cards this year?

My Lovely Gelli Plate

First off, let me just say that I am no way affiliated or compensated by any of the brands I mention here on my blog - I fall in love with supplies and want to share my enthusiasm for them. 

I love my Gelli Plate!!  I had never done any kind of print making before picking up this awesome supply and once I started it has become an addiction.  I don't think I've even begun to explore all the different things I can do with it but I am having fun doing what I'm doing. Plain and simple - layers.  I love the layers I can get with it!!!

Here's a little show and tell of one tiny little gelli plate session

I picked some colours to squirt on the plate - these are heavy body acrylics

Then I used my Catalyst wedge to spread the paint around.

I laid a stencil over top of the spread paint - in this pic below you can see I spread some of the left over paint onto a sheet of paper which will become a painted page to use in collage.

To pull prints from the stencil, I used a couple of already painted pages and a vintage book page

The paint was pretty much used up from the stencil so I pulled the stencil off and smashed it down on a journal page to create a negative image of the stencil.

The paint dries quite fast so I had to move quickly (it helps to have several journals and pages and painted backgrounds ready to pull prints with) and laid another painted page over top of the gelli plate and opened my journal to another page to try to use up all the paint before it dries. My favourite prints are the ones from these last few pulls where the paint has dried in some spots and it is really random how the print will turn out. 

I hope you enjoyed seeing one of my Gelli Plate sessions!! Would love to know if you've ever tried monoprinting before!!