Gelli anyone?

Here's some of the things I did yesterday with my gelli plate and acrylic paints.     A new group of stitched envelopes from deli wrap, and a quickie collage with a recycled envelope.      I'm going to do more of these.    Too bad I threw away that box of recyclable envelopes.    Oh well, more come in the mail every week.   I'll soon have enough for a good play time.   

Gelli printing with Carolyn Dube's One Pull Workshop

This is my big treat this month.     I've been pulling prints left and right.   Literally.       Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday she sends out the invitation to join her by watching the next video she posted.  And I go straight to it and enjoy the experience.      My results are not always good, but I'm having fun and learning something new every time.     Learning some not to do things also.   LOL   

 The first two were done with one of my favorite stencils.    These are photos, not scans so you probably can't see the color shifts as well as I'd like.

 These are a batch of stitched enveloves using the bright colored experiments with stencils.

 The next two were done with a floral stencil.    Oddly, the top one looks kind of like an owl peering out.    Must be the way I cropped it.

This last one was done with the sencil when the paint on it had built up but was just wet enough to move the layers of paints onto the page by pressing really hard with the brayer.   I was so delighted to see the colors come through.  This is one of the  things I learned from Carolyn's class.

Goats are us.

Recently I was sent an invitation to the reception for the next art show at the Knowlton Gallery in Lodi.     The photo of one painting blew me away.  I could not get the image of the goats in the meadow out of my head.   I checked into their online shop and found it is way, way, waaaayyyy out of my price range, so I decided just to paint a couple of goats myself.    Believe me, they are kindergarten level next to the masterpiece I fell in love with, but it was fun to work on them and remember the days we had a little herd of goats grazing amongst the manzanitas on our hilltop above Jackson, Ca.      How fun it was to shake the bucket full of oats with molasses on them, and wait for the herd to come dashing up for their treats.       My son Matt had a little white goat he named cloud.     Our first baby goats were born on a St. Patricks day, so we named them Patti and Molly.     Nice Irish sounding names to celebrate the day.     Here are my goat paintings.

These were just d one as part of the 30 pieces of art in 30 days.      

If you'd like to see a short video on the artists showing at the Knowlton, the artist whose work I love so much is Kathleen Dunphy, and her goat painting is shown at the end of the interview.    You'll get a sense of the peacefulness of the scene of goats grazing in a sunny meadow.    Here is the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4tuva3Ni5A&list=UUondM_leFbeBIIAbLiTHEfw

Gelli play

Did I post a pic of my cleaned off table, ready to start my gelli plate printing project?

 That is a brand new pristine gelli plate, just waiting to be used.   My old smaller one is on the left, somewhat discolored, but perfectly useful.    

  Lest you think my whole work space looks so good, here is what the shelves behind me look like. LOL  Pretty awful huh?    I can find everything though and it's close at hand.   

Now that you've seen the messiness, I'll show you what I've been up to.

Here is Frances painting at the Senior Center on Monday.

 Tuesday, encaustic demo by Linda Nunes.    She has a video on You Tube and does workshops.    it was great.    Learned lots of  new things and shared a story with her that made her laugh.    I just related that when my art pals and I did beeswax on bottles, the hot wax attracted bees to the window near the wax pots.    That was in Modesto, and the same thing happened in Brentwood the next time we tried it.  That's when I gave all my wax stuff away.     Not because of the bees, but because I had tired of what I could do with it, and didn't have space to store things I don't use often.     But, Linda has me inspired to take a workshop and learn to use the mix of beeswax and resin.  the resulting finish is awesome.

 Here's part of the group at the demo last night.  Only one man there.    

These are some of the prints I pulled this morning from the gelli plate.    what I'm trying to do is paint directly on the gelli plate and pulling one or two prints.     With the acrylics I have to work really fast.     but, I'm getting better with it than a couple days back. 

This is one I did a couple days ago.    the face is on the back of the deli wrap, I am holding it up to the light so she shows through. I could just as well printed her on top of the background, but I did her first and later played with backgrounds.      


Here's a tip for the gelli plate users.   Don't pull a print onto newspaper or book pages.  I did that to supposedly clean off the paints from the last print.    the text on the page may transfer to the gelli plate itself.   Not that it ruins it, it just doesn't go away.    It does not print onto other prints.   

Whizzing by

Time?    Where does it go?      the 30 day art challenge is on again and this time I'm not painting.  Too many other things to do.     Here are some of them.

these are my son Matt's awesome jet ski pants.   I hemmed them to fit better.    Quite unusal materials and such a sporty look.   

 Friday evening was Art Hop in Lodi.    We started at the gallery, bringing food and drinks.    Then we just looked at the art and visited with people.    

 Our featured artist was Leland Choy.   Frances sat down next to him and he started a portrait of her on the spot.      Leland is the husband of our friend Vivian, who was also there helping out.  It was really a fun time. 

 after we left the gallery we went to the library where the Pen Women were doing poetry readings of their work, and they were also showing their art.   Our friends Elizabeth, Caroline, Charlene and Pepe were there so we had more visiting.      Then we went to another art venue in a little shop where they were featuring the work of Patti Wallace.    You can't put ladies in a room with hats without us trying them on.   LOL    

This is yesterday's journal page spread.    Stencils, acrylics, collage and rubber stamps.    

 Thisi s one I did a few days back.   

 And the blue eyed conductor.   could it be my cowboy is disguise?   

 Here is on of the pages I did today using an image from a fashion magazine a friend brought me.     I decided it would be more fun if the model was a bird too.   

 This skeleton stenciled page is on the opposite page.   Just for fun.

At our mixed media group this week, we made victorian or grunge tags.    

This next one was my favorite  project of the week.     My stenciled windows.   My very best friend gave me some old windows that were sitting around her garden.
I stenciled them in reverse from  the back side, then sprayed the backs with paint for the green one, and mirror glass spray on the other.        the next day she picked up the mirrored one for her house.     The green on is on my fence in the back yard in a little are I've been reworking.    it's my favorite corner of the garden now.

As you can see I  may not be painting every day, but it's all art whether sewing a hem or painting a window.