Birds Nest for Easter Step by Step

"If we always do what we always did we always get what we always had!"

Perfect quote sent to me the other day by my lovely friend and fellow artist Joanne Boone Thomas

What a great saying! And its so true.  I am very much climbing out of my comfort zone and having such fun experimenting with new printing techniques.

I can't believe it was only last week that I received my delivery of all my new Gel Press plates and this is the first time or using a round one. 

So much has happened since then and all of it doing printing! Oh and planning, dreaming, sketching out ideas..............

Gel Press junky is now an understatement.  So whilst the paint is still wet I will fill you in with what I have done.

Here is a short step-by-step on how I achieved my nests of eggs.  A favourite subject at this time of year in all mediums and printing by no means gets left behind!
                                                                 SLIDESHOW BELOW

Materials

• 8" Round Gel Press Plate
• Acrylic paints
• Brayer
• Copy Paper
• Bunch of grasses
• Scrap Paper 
• Egg cutouts (masks)
• Embellishing materials and spare prints

 First I dabbed on nest colours of yellow ochre and burnt sienna

 I brayered this over the plate till the colours blended but in a patchy way

I then took my bunch of reed grass and moving around the plate pushed it into the paint thus picking up the paint on the way and leaving an impression

I then used the brayer to roll black paint on the grass

 and then pressed this onto the painted plate to leave black grass impressions

At this point I took a print with the centre a solid colour as one option

I then added three egg cutouts (masks) and pulled another print

I added cream and pink paint and rolled it out over the Gel Press plate

And got this, which I love!  Can you see the childs face in there?  Something to work on later.

Here is a short slideshow showing how some of them ended up.  A couple I would call finished and the others ....well i'll just have to play with those.

Click HERE view slideshow

Happy Easter and see you next time!

Bix x

Fresh Air?

Spent nearly the whole of last week pretty much locked  in my very "underused in the winter" Studio as I took delivery of 14 different sized Gel Press Plates from Gel Press in the US on Tuesday. So not alot of fresh was had!!! A shock as I only had to wait 3 days and was thrilled when the box arrived jammed packed with goodies.

As part of my  role as a Creative Designer for the Team I need to play with each Gel Press Plate and see what I can come up with and my head is swimming with ideas.

So Tuesday was spent prepping the area in the Studio for my marathon session including lighting the stove on Wednesday and Thursday as it was pretty cold out there and the room takes a good while to warm up.
Somebody else wanted to join me in the warm studio, but at this point, covered in cobwebs, didnt gain entry. But managed to later and left a paw print or two.

I decided that I wanted to work on the 10x8 Gel Press plate as that was a bit larger than what I am used to.  Effectively it is just a wee bit smaller than an A4 sheet of paper as you can see from the image below.

For warming up I just added a few blobs of acrylic paint on the plate and smoothed them out with the brayer and textured the surface with some home made stamps and bubble wrap took a first pull and then added the dragonfly masks and some blue green paint rollered over the top
 

I next planned some landscapes that I had been storing in my "to do" file. And these were the outcome after embellishment

I like instant results so this method suits me well.  One of my favourites is below!

***TOPTIP***

My advice is go for a subject that you love...if you try to create something you do not like it will show in the finished work.

My Bonnie lies over the ocean

I shall be doing a landscape video very soon, so follow me here on this blog and on Gel Press Junkies for the latest updates from me and my Gel Press Creative Team mates..

I hope to launch my website this week so that you can see some Gel Press prints that were created in this session under Recent Work and my other work.

Please feel free to ask questions and leave a comment

Thats it for now

Bix x

First Gel Press Post

Gel Press Blog

Hi everyone,

just announcing first post on the Gel Press Blog showing some of my sketches done on Gel Press prints via a short video I did on Youtube

Hope you enjoy what you see.

Please feel free to leave me a comment below.

Bx

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

A beautiful March day!

Inspired by the sunshine and the spring flowers poking their heads up went into the kitchen where the stove is burning, for a quick play with some Brusho (studio is a bit chilly at the moment) .

Of course finishing both these pieces from lines of William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" seemed appropriate.

I love the spring and the knowledge that the dark grey days are almost at an end I can go out more to sketch.

Sunny today with a touch of frost and perfect for a brisk fresh walk around the lake with Arty, before a lovely Beef roast dinner from our local farmer.....

He gets so excited when he sees us both get our wellies on and knows that its "round the lake time".

Of course he is dead to the world now this afternoon!

Thats it for now!

See you soon with some Gel Press updates!
Bix x