Hearts and Flowers

Today I decided to create something abstract again.  I had a go with Gelli printing.  This involves making an ink or paint imprint on paper using this floppy and gelatine like plate of just under 1cm in thickness.  It is durable, flexible and easy to clean.  You spread some ink or paint and spread it with a small roller and if you want can stick a stencil or press a rubber stamp on top of the plate to create patterns.  I used some bubble wrap as you can see.  And also a dash of yellow acrylic ink over the blue Staz-on ink.  Not wanting any waste, I cleaned the roller after each use by rolling it on the sides of the paper.  Then stamped on some green ink with the bubble wrap.  Looks a bit fragmented but it was all for good practice and figured it would be a challenge to create something out of it.

After spraying the area with Fixative spray (to prevent colours from smearing when painting on top), I took a step back and looked at what I could draw.  Initially thought of another kawaii character but I didn’t want to distract the interesting effect and patterns from being the centrepiece.  So I went for something abstract involving flowers (again!) because of the green bits.  After careful thought, I outlined what I thought would be cool using black marker (Faber Castell’s Pitt Artists Pen in Black SB size).  The background was then coated with white gesso to make the paint less transparent.

Then I painted the background using Dylusion paints mixed with Matte Medium.  This time, I stuck to Blue, Green and Yellows as analogous colours for a more soothing effect.  Great change since my paintings are normally quite colourful.  Colours used were Lemon Yellow, Mushy Peas and Cut Grass.

After finishing painting, I tidied up the outline by retracing it with the black marker for a cleaner look.  Then with a stencil I went over some areas using my fingers dipped in India ink (one green one and another iridescent green, both by Dr Ph. Martin’s Bombay Ink)  It didn’t work out as planned but never mind, I then randomly dotted those inks with my ring finger and also make some bubble wrap imprints.  An indispensable item, the bubble wrap!  And I also brushed some indigo Ecoline ink on the “stem” of the heart-shaped “plant”.    Finally, I dotted some areas with a green acrylic pen.  I think it looks cool now.

This piece was again so much fun to work on especially since I got to experiment with something as new as a Gelli Plate and with something different like sticking to an analogous colour scheme.  It is in fact quite soothing yet wow.  I just stuck to bold colours!  What I also found interesting was the various formations from the printing, like the white “dots” scattered around the right hand bottom flower.   Although I need more experience and practice on this, I would most definitely like to do more Gelli printing again.  Oh and check out the close ups of the painting: