Create Vibrant Artwork with Gelli Plate

I love going through some of my older posts; they always inspire me... This post was originally posted on August 5 of 2015.  I hope you'll enjoy a look back at these beautiful, vibrant paintings!


I've been teaching an amazing group of women this summer.  One of them, Lesley, took one of my classes at The Ink Pad.  She contacted me in May, asking if I would come to Long Branch once a week and teach a group in her home.  I'm so glad I said yes!  It's been a great adventure, and I learned so much as I planned a new lesson for each of the six weeks.

Our last lesson was on Tuesday, and it seemed fitting to have a Gelli Plate Party!  None of these women had ever used the gelli plate before, and their excitement and joy was thrilling.  The paint and prints were flying!  All my Stencil Girl stencils were in the mix, plus a big favorite -- Terri Stegmiller's recent design for Stencil Club.

Peacock stamp from Rubbermoon!

 We used our gelli prints to make illustrations inspired by African Masks, following the steps I used in this post to create a Ganesh Superhero.

Here is the preliminary work:

and three of the finished pieces.  Aren't they awesome!!!

Here's a picture of all the women at the conclusion of one of our earlier classes.  I have truly enjoyed working with them.

Here's my finished demo piece - inspired by Cecil the Lion and this editorial. 

 Maria McGuire's Greek Border stencil provided the perfect finishing touches.

Check out "Strength" on Society6! 

How do you use your gel prints?

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Art Journaling with Dina Wakley

Before getting to my post, I want to wish everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year! May your year ahead be filled with sweetness and many blessings.

Recently, I attended a wonderful class at The Ink Pad given by Dina Wakley.

Do you know Dina?  She is an artist, author, and designer of stencils, paints, brushes and more for Ranger.  She is also a wonderful teacher - puts you at ease immediately with her encouraging delivery.  Her default response to any question is "the answer is yes!"

I was lucky to share this class with Marjie Kemper, who recently blogged about her experience in class here.









The class was called "Beyond the Ink Pad" and was about using your stamps as first layers, so that they come through your background and become part of the story that your focal images are telling.  I often use stamps in my work, but after this class, I will definitely be using them more.  As always, it was amazing to see how different all of our pages came out, though we all followed Dina's instructions and techniques.

Of course, I couldn't resist adding my Stencil Girl stencils to the mix... above you can see my Medieval Leaves stencil interacting with Pam Carriker's beautiful Ophelia face stamp.  

In the background, you can see the top of Ganesha's head from the Ganesh Deity Stencil.

And in the foreground are elements from the Squares and Circles Stencil interacting with the Dress Form stamp from Tim Holtz.  

I love being a student!  I always learn precious nuggets to take away and incorporate into my art.

And now to announce the winner of my calendar giveaway!!

For those who wish to purchase a copy, it's available on Amazon with free shipping! 

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.

 

Cultivating a Beginner's Mind

Shoshin means "beginner's mind:"  having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner would.  There are specific techniques for cultivating it, including discarding fear of failure, and embracing falling down, as well as getting back up. 

I tried to keep these principles in mind on Saturday, when I attended a wonderful day long class taught by Nathalie Kalbach and Julie Balzer at The Ink Pad.   (Thank you Nathalie for letting me use some of your pictures.  I was paying such close attention that I didn't take many of my own!)

Julie and Nat had us use the same supplies, but they taught very different approaches to collage.  Nathalie's approach was in my comfort zone - having a recognizable focus point and using collage to help tell a story.  Here's what I made. Although I expect to do more with it, I already like it...

Julie taught a more abstract approach - and boy was I out of my comfort zone.  I can't say I'm happy with what I did.  To be honest, at some point I kind of gave up out of frustration.    But as Julie so aptly said, who ever learned anything from their successes?  (She actually said a few other choice words - you have to take a class with her to get the flavor!)   I'm determined to revisit these two pieces, and resist the temptation to add a face or cut one of them up into fun shapes for another piece!  I'm also really glad I'm going to a workshop with Jane Davies in a few weeks - she's also an abstract artist and I definitely need more work in this area!  Plus, I'll be there with my bud - Judy Shea - so no matter what, it will be a blast!

Here's the whole group with their pieces.  It was a big class, and Julie and Nat were great about getting around to everyone and sharing so generously.  I loved watching them work separately and together - and especially enjoyed seeing the respect and affection they showed each other.  Plus, the two of them are pretty funny so we all had a lot of laughs!

Julie and Nat are great teachers - individually and together, and I look forward to taking more classes with them.  In fact, I definitely plan to take Nat's class on June 8th at The Ink Pad to hone my knowledge about acrylics:

How about you?  What classes are making your heart sing these days? 

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.

 

I Love to Teach

I love to make art, but I love to share my love of art with others even more.  I got to do so Sunday at The Ink Pad in New York where I taught two classes.  In the morning, 18 students learned all different stenciling techniques:

We used sprays, dabbers, portfolio pastels,

acrylics dabbed on with cosmetic sponges and brushes...

We all had lots of fun getting colorful and messy.

The morning culminated in making an hombre style collage:

Which we then painted into a citiscape, using glazing techniques in the process!

In the afternoon, several new students came, and many of the morning students stayed.  The fun continued as we explored molding paste, fiber paste, glass bead gel, embossing powder and more to make a mixed media canvas.

Unfortunately, Sandy and Stephanie had to leave before we got to our group picture...

It was such a happy day!   One of the things I liked best was how differently everyone's projects turned out, even though they all followed the same steps with most of the same materials.  And thankfully, I had my ace assistant, Samy, with me - and she took all these great photos (and I'm holding her project!).  I can never remember to do this when I'm teaching.  So thank you Samy! 

Thank you to The Ink Pad for having me.  It was so much fun!

Thank you for visiting! I read and treasure every comment and will answer any questions as quickly as I can.