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

Bixxy Nash - Creative Designer

Today I can officially announce that I am to be part of a team for an American based company called Gel Press as a Creative Designer amongst others with the same role. The great thing is that we all use similar tools but we produce very different work.  So this really is art that YOU create and will always be unique.

Its all exciting! 


So my Gel plate printing in the last couple of years has paid off and I hope now to move forward with the craft and develop many more techniques and already my head is swimming with inspiration and ideas. 

This is the facebook page for Gel Press Junkies so pop over there every so often to see what has been created by the team and other members. 

Recent work

So join me on my journey and please feel free to comment at anytime and I will endeavour to answer your questions.

These past few weeks has seen me busy with a miriad of things including the building of a new website and updating some old footage of videos etc.

Qatar

I also joined a group on Facebook called Everyday in February which is a sketching group.  

Peru

A new years resolution of "i must do more sketching in more creative ways" has resulted in my getting the above job on the team, by giving me the confidence to "go for it".  

This has been great for me as I also used gel printed papers that were in my "what do i do with these" box and sketched over them.  The theme this month was world travel and we given a different country per day to visit.  Here are some of mine on the Printed papers.
I selected each sheet based on the coloring of the scene that I had in mind or maybe just the national colours of the country from their flag.  I then worked round that. 

Sweden

  I used Micron tip pens to do the drawing and Tombow pens (brush felt tip style pens) for alot of the bright bits and watercolour in the lighter areas where the paint could take.

Oman

Of course you really could go mad and do collage and decoupage ontop using stamps of the countries and other souvenirs and memorabilia.


This is definately something I will be doing for my travel journals and will update you on these when I start.

So will all this going on....the holiday bookings are still coming in and I am looking forward to this season.

If anyone is interested in a Gel Press workshop please mail me on info@francepaintingholiday and I can give you some more information

I will end it here and be back in a few days with more.....

Abientot
Bix x