The old barn door - reworked

I showed you this print of the old barn door in my last post.

I had a total of 3 prints, the above one being the best of the 3. I took one of the 'lesser' prints and worked on it with pen (black and brown ink) and soft pastels. And I love how it turned out!!

I am wondering if I could use some watercolors on the other print. The print is printed on Mulberry paper, not sure if it will handle washes... And I am even not sure the printing ink is waterproof. Maybe I need to check that first!

Printmaking for the WetCanvas WDE

I have been watching lots of printmaking video's on YouTube lately. Looking for new techniques of printmaking. I love Belinda del Pesco's video's. She explains and shows different printmaking techniques in a short video. I was looking for a image to use as a first experiment for a matboard collograph (Link to Belinda's video). And I found one in the WetCanvas Drawing event for this weekend.

This is the image and my first cut in matboard (coated with gloss medium) with an X-Acto knive.

After another coat of medium, I rubbed the ink into the cuts.

And with a cloth, a tissue and a q-tip I rubbed some of the ink of for the high lights

I cut 3 pieces of Mulberry paper into 8" x 10" size pieces and soaked them in water. The print plate is 4" x 6". I placed the paper on the printing plate and started rubbing with the back of a spoon, and rubbing, and rubbing....

After the first print I made some more cuts in the plate. This is the second print and is the best of the three. And drying on the washing line as you see ;-). Great new technique!! Thanks Belinda!

When they are all dry I will see if I will work on them a bit more, maybe with watercolors, or ink, maybe colored pencils. Lots of opportunities, will certainly try this again.

Monoprinting and linocuts

I am still enjoying playing with my new Gelli plate! I am trying different ways of using the plate and am creating lovely papers.

I have an idea that I need to work on, combining gelli plate printing with linocuts, collage, and more. I carved a pelican in lino and printed it onto BKF Rives printing paper. The example below is handcolored with watercolors. I am still figuring out how to best print the background on the Gelli Plate and I will keep you updated when I found the right process. For the meantime... enjoy

And as Albert Einstein said: "Creativity is contagious, pass it on"