Gel Plate Painting: From Print to Canvas

1. Introduction: What if your gel prints weren't the end but the beginning of a painting? Welcome to the studio. It's Freule here. I'm a mixed media artist, and I've been painting and exhibiting for over 30 years. I am deeply passionate about empowering you to create great art. And in this class, I'm going to show you a way of working with the gel plate that moves beyond printing and into painting. Now, this technique grew out of my class 12 of 100 days of collage. Where I was exploring a more abstract expressionist approach, loosening control, responding to color, and allowing the paint to move freely. And somewhere in this process, something shifted, and the gel plate became a process of painting, not just print. I'll show you how I work directly onto the plate with rich flowing color, how to pull, lay it textured prints, and then how to take one of those prints and transform it into a finished mixed media painting on canvas. This is really about moving beyond the print and discovering what it can become. If you love gel printing, collage, and mixed media and you're ready to take your work a little further, I know you're going to love the process experimentation, fun. And exploration of this fantastic technique. So join me in the studio. Let's gather our materials, and let's make art. 2. Material List: Right. So the materialist, of course, we have to start with the gel plate. Now, I've got a 16 by 20 inch gel el plate. You don't have to use this particular size plate. You can use whatever it is that you have already. And it doesn't matter what brand it is. Of course you need a brayer, but you'll also need some paint brushes or something else to put the paint on the plate. I don't even use a paint Ruth. I can't wait to show you. This is going to be so much fun. Now I've got my collection of acrylic paints. And yes, these are all my favorite colors. You don't have to use these colors. You can use whatever it is that you've got or your favorite colors. They may not be these luscious, rich, warm, and metallic colors that I prefer, but make sure you're creating with something that makes you happy. I've got a few different types, different brands. I've also got a few acrylic paints in different viscosities. So I've got the fluid paint here, and I'm using some high flow as well. Can't wait to show you what we're doing with this. I do have one of my favorite I zinc sprays, although you can't actually get these anymore. So disappointing. And talking about spray paint, I do like to use the liquitex, acrylic spray paint. You don't have to use this, remember, if you don't want to. But what I do like about this spray paint is it's compatible with all the other acrylic paints. So much fun, especially when you're using it through stencils. And talking about stencils, you do want to have a few different stencils in different shapes or styles that you want to work with. Now, I've got some fabulous lunar paste. This is like a stencil butter. It's just a thick acrylic, paste like beautiful metallic colors. Love them. Well, there's a bit of a theme here, using all my favorites. And I've got some of this glorious acoso paper, handmade, beautiful paper from Thailand. I'm using this to actually pull some prints today, Cart weight to show you. Turns out stunning. I'm also using some wet string tissue. So, a variety of paper, it doesn't have to be these papers but it does make a different effect, depending on what you're using. I've also got some satin varnish because we're going to be putting our fabulous gel prints, gluing them onto a canvas as a finished artwork. And, of course, I couldn't stop at one. So I'm going to show you how I varnish them, how I finish them. It's so exciting. There's so much to explore with this fabulous new technique that I'm totally loving. Right, we've got all our basic supplies, and there is a list in your class notes if you want to know exactly what these paint names are and where to get them. So pull out all your paints and your beautiful papers. Grab that gel plate. We're going to have so much fun. 3. Gel Plate Painting: H a few years ago, I started on my gel plate Adventure journey. I was using the particular technique for creating collage paper. It makes fast and furious papers very easily, very beautifully. And then I started developing stencils and stamps and adding layers. I kept trying different techniques and ways to create beautiful prints that I used for collage to create fabulous mixed media artworks. Then as time went on, I added more elements to the gel plate. I added some collage and some gold leaf. And the adventure was absolutely fabulous because gel plate printing is so versatile. There's so many possibilities. There's so many ways to create absolutely beautiful original artworks with simple technique and not too many art supplies. So, in today's class, I'm going to take you into my adventure of my latest technique with the gel plate, doing what I call a gel plate. Painting. I'm going to show you how I create some absolutely beautiful papers on the gel plate in a painting application, and then we're going to put a fabulous collage together on a canvas. So I've pulled out my 16 of my 20 inch gel elf plate, and I'm starting with my absolute favorite colors. I've got Quin Magenta, liquitex in the bronze, copper, unbleached titanium, and, of course, metallic gold. We have to have the I've also put on a little bit of the Nath pal crimson. Now, I'm using a really interesting tool here. It's actually a piece of foam from packaging, and it's one of my absolutely favorite tools for creating this fabulous technique of gel plate painting because I'm just scraping the paint across the gel plate very abstract, very opulent. I'm moving it with my piece of foam. Then I squeezed on a little more gold, a little more magenta, and ran that fabulous tool through all of the paint covering the gel plate. And I'm putting on a piece of Coso paper in an amber brown color. It's a beautiful textured handmade paper from Coso studio. I'm putting it straight on the plate, straight across all of that paint layer, and then I'm pulling it off straight away. We're not letting this one dry. We're not letting it sit there too long because this is very soft. Fibrous paper. And if you leave it on your plate too long, it's going to be destroyed. So I just give it a quick rub over and pull it off the plate and then turn around and put it on the floor behind me in my studio. Now, you can see there's a whole lot of paint left on the plate, and it's created this beautiful texture putting that paper on, pulling it off, and the paint that remains is going to take another beautiful print. So next I'm putting on a piece of wet strength tissue straight on the paint again. I'm giving it a good rub over. This time, I'm rubbing it a little bit harder, so it picks up more of that paint, and this paper is a lot stronger than the handmade curso paper, so you can get a little more rough with it. Once I've given it a good rub over, I then pull the wet strength, tissue off, and I have another beautiful print. Now there's a lot less paint on the gel plate, and we can continue to create the next print like we normally would for any other technique. I'm adding some stencils with the beautiful liquitex spray paint in this gorgeous red color. And then I'm also adding a pop of orange. So now, whatever you put first on your gel plate is going to be on top when you turn it over. So the layers we're adding now are going to build fabulous textures sitting behind the glorious colours of paint that we've already put on the plate. So I poured out some gold in the liquitex spray paint, and I'm spraying that on, but the nozzle was clogged. Don't you hate that I hate. I hate that when the nozzle clogs up. It kind of made a textured splattery paper mark on the plate, which was okay, but it didn't do what I wanted it to do. I wanted it to spray nice and evenly. Oh, man, but we push on. We don't give up. We roll with the punches and see where the creativity leads us. So now I have this beautiful textured layer of splattery paint colors. Now you have to wait for this layer to perfectly dry before you roll on your pickup paint. And I'm using a very pale, pinky tone just so it adds to the background of the print pull it up. And I'm using the wet strength tissue for this print. Now, I did leave it sometime before I pulled it up. Hm, it would have been a couple of hours, and then I pulled the print. Tara, Tara. It looks absolutely beautiful, and you can see all of the fabulous layers. Now, I do find that, especially when there's a buildup of lots of paint and lots of layers, that if you pull the gel plate off the paper instead of the paper off the gel plate, it comes away easier. Especially if you've left it long enough. Don't forget you do need a longer time for the paint layer to dry before you pull it up if you've got lots of layers like I had on this print. And it does depend on where you live, the temperature of the day, is it warm? Is it cold? If you're pulling your print up and you're finding there's too much paint left on the plate or it's sticking or it's tearing, you didn't leave it long enough. So make sure you leave it long enough so that when you pull it off, it comes off clean from the gel plate. It doesn't tear, it doesn't stick, and you'll be a lot so now the second print that I pulled on the wet strength tissue, I decided to add a little more color to the background. Look how fabulous the design is of that paint that we put on the gel play. I just love it. So I've pulled out some golden high flow. Now this paint is very fluid but really pigmented. So I'm using the quin magenta and the transparent red onoxideT of my favorite putting it into a little container, and I'm adding a little bit of water just to thin it out even more. So it's more like a watercolor application, but because it's the high flow, it's so extremely pigmented that the colour is going to be very saturated, which I love. So I'm brushing it on around the paper where there is the blank space. And then when I covered it all and I was nice and happy, I gave it a spritza with some zinc in the gold mine just to get a little bit of shimmer. And what do you think? Isn't it absolutely beautiful? I love how this print turned out. You can see now the texture of the paint. From putting the paper on and pulling it off straight away, it creates all of this texture of the wet paint. I love it. I think it looked beautiful. And then this one has that glorious added texture of the water coolory look with the high flow that I painted all around this section. I think it's just beautiful. And because it's on the wet streak tissue, I can easily now glue this onto a canvas. It's nice and soft. It would stick super easy, and it would bend round the corners of the canvas, as well, which I really love. I think this print it's very successful. What do you think about my gel plate paintings? I love this new technique, and I do get a little carried away when I'm exploring a new technique. This was the other print of the third print from the plate. Which way do I like it? I think I like it this way. I like the wohing of it like that. You can see all the layers here from the spray paint through that stencil. But I love these shapes from the paint that was put on the plate first. And it's so fabulous because you couldn't really paint it in by hand like this with the texture underneath coming through with that fabulous stencil mark. That's what we love about gel printing. You've got all of those fabulous layers. So I'm loving this one, as well. This one's on the carnival wet strength tissue. It's a little bigger. It takes up my whole plate. Which is fabulous. And this would work really well in a collage. Any collage either as a background or parts of the piece or some of it or add it with something else, I just absolutely love these textured shapes. I think this is such a fabulous technique, and there's so many possibilities. Look how beautiful all of these three prints have turned out with just one paint application on the gelply. 4. From Print to Canvas: Right. So with the first print that I took on the beautiful coso paper, I decided I'm going to put it on a canvas. And the first thing I did was spray it with the liquitex in the orange spray paint just to give the base of the canvas a little more depth of color. Then when that was dry, I put on a layer of the liquitex matt gel medium, spread it across the canvas, brushed it so that it was completely covered, and then put on my beautiful print from the gel plate. Now I did print this onto the coso paper, which is very soft. Oh, beautiful and fibrous, but you do have to be a little bit careful when you're gluing it on the canvas because it's quite easy to rub it too much and tear a hole in it. I know I have done that. You've got to push it down so that it adheres nicely to the canvas and push out all of the air bubbles, but you can't push it too much that you tear holes in it. So gently, gently Get the paper down nice and firm. And then what I like to do is put the matte medium on the side and wrap the paper around the canvas. It looks finished, it looks professional, and you're going to love it in the end when it's hanging on the wall and all of those edges over the paintings are covered in the same colour. It's very easy to do. You just put on the matte medium and you turn the paper over and you tuck it and fold it like you're wrapping a parcel. Super easy, but it does give it a really nice finish. I absolutely love how this print looks on the canvas. It's just beautiful. And you can see the glorious fibers of the Coso paper coming through, but I wasn't so happy with the tone of the orange. So I poured out the high flow again in the magenta and the transparent red iron oxide, watered it down a little in the container, and then I brushed it on the canvas. I just wanted to deepen the tone of that background, and it turned out beautiful. These paints have worked so well for this particular technique because they soak in to that cosot paper. They cover the area beautifully, gave it a bit of a sprinter of some water, so it spreads out, bit watercolor like, and it's covering the paper beautifully. Now, just make sure you don't try and do anything to that canvas with the paper on it until it's perfectly dry from being glued on. Otherwise, I'm telling you, it's going to tear to shreds. So once it's perfectly dry, add a little touchu of colour, deepen the colours, and it's beautiful. Now, I love how the canvas looks with my gel plate painting on it with the Coso paper. It's just glorious. It just has such a beautiful texture to it. And the color that I deepened it with high flow paint just turned out so well. So I just want to finish it now with a focal point, some kind of texture to add to it, to give the paint depth and some meaning. So I've poured out this beautiful stencil. It's got some birds on some branches with some flowers, and I think it's going to suit the style and feel of the painting. It's very pretty, and I think it would suit the colors. So I put some low tech tape on half the stencil. I only wanted half of it. I didn't want to cover my entire canvas. And then I'm putting it on with lunar paste. Now, this is like a stencil butter. It's acrylic and it's very thick. You open the tub, you pull it out. Tara, ta da. It's already ready to go, and it has a beautiful metallic shem. I'm using a cookie dough, color, which is the light one, and then the refined copper, which is in that beautiful coppery color. I'm putting on the two different colors in the sections with the flowers and the branches with the birds. You do have to make sure you hold your stencil still and steady when you're putting on the lunar paste. But when I pulled it up, ta da da, it looks beautiful. I think the colors match really well and the feel of the painting, I think that's really working with our gel plate print. Now I did really love the look of it, but I did feel that the birds were a little lost. So once the first stencil was completely dry, I put it back on in exactly the same place and put on some permanent lizarin to deepen the bird color. So they stood out a little bit more from the background. What do you think about it now. I am so happy with this project. I think it looks absolutely beautiful. I think deepening the color of the birds was a really good idea. It stands them out a little bit from the background, and look at the beautiful metallic shine of the paint. It's worked so well on the coso paper. I love this gel plate painting. I think it's turned out so well. What I love about it is that you can still see the texture of the Coso paper coming through here. And the shape of this paint layer is so unique because we took that print off the gel plate. The stencils working. Beautiful. The birds are much happier now in the deeper tone. I think it's absolutely stunning. I'm so happy with it. So when it's completely dry, I'll probably spray varnish just to make sure everything's covered, helps with UV protection. And I'm really happy with this. I think it's going to look stunning up on the wall. It's such a fun and experimental technique to try to take your gel plate printing further, going further than where you've been before and actually creating a painting application. Very successful idea. I'm thinking. So, I decided that I wanted to do a second one, and this time, I wanted to have a deeper color of the coso paper. And 5. We Can't Make Just One: Of course, we had to do a second print. I couldn't let you think it was a one time deal. And this time, I want to use a deeper color of the coso paper to see how well that's going to look with the paint application. So I'm starting with the same colors of the bronze, the copper, and the beautiful gold. I'm also adding the crimson and the magenta. And the only thing extra I'm adding this time is a little bit of naples yellow, and the naples yellow reddish. Soft pastel colors in with the mix of the other strong colours. I'm thinking it's going to give it a little bit of a lighter and brighter on my deeper coso paper. Again, I'm using my favorite piece of foam packaging to move the paint across the gel plate and create that fabulous textured mark. Then I'm putting the ruby wine colored coso paper straight onto the gel plate, giving it a light rub and pulling it straight off. And that's the trick. You do need to get that paper off paint layer straightaway, if you're using something that's so soft and fibrous and textured, it would be the same if you're going to use rice paper or some of the other beautiful soft papers. Straight onto the paint layer and straight off, put it down somewhere to dry and then don't touch it. Now, the second print I'm doing this time, I'm using plain coso paper. I want to see how well this one's going to print. I give it a firma rub across that paint layer because I know this paper won't tear. Then I pull that paper up and see what I've got left on the gel plate. There wasn't actually so much left on the plate this time. So I've rolled over some transparent red iron oxide, and I've given it a spritz up with some water just to create that fabulous watery technique, break up the paint so that you see other layers coming through. Next, I did the same with the beautiful quinn magenta, and I'm using the golden fluid paint so it's light. And it's easy to roll across and sprits up with the water to create that textured layer. Then I add some of my favorite iridescent bronze fine onto the surface, just in a few places across it so that you pick up a little bit of a shine once the print is pulled. Then I added a little bit of the iridescent gold across the surface, and when it was all completely dry, I put on a layer of unbleached titanium to pull the print. And this time, I'm using the plain coso paper to pull the print to see how well this idea is going to work. Now I did leave it sitting on the gel plate for a couple of hours so to make sure that it dried properly with all of those paint layers. And this time, I pulled the paper off the gel plate because I was fairly sure that this coso paper was going to be strong enough to pull up without tearing and have a look. It's absolutely beautiful. What a stunning print. You can see all of those glorious layers of those fabulous colours. Now, when the second print was dry, I added the beautiful high flow again with the magenta and the transparent red iron loxide. And I really like this print in the vertical format. I think the composition looks beautiful. The way I added the paint to the original gel plate layer works really well in that vertical format. Have a look at how beautiful all three of these prints are. I'm so excited for this technique. I think there's so many possibilities, and they have turned out so incredibly beautiful. Now, I'm thinking that any of these three prints would work well for a collage. This one looks particularly beautiful on the deeper shade of the ruby wine of the Coso paper, and I could put that just like this straight onto a canvas in a ernical format, and then I would have to decide if I'm going to add anything else to it or I could leave it as an abstract painting quite easily, tuck it round over the sides. I think it would look just beautiful. This is the second print that I added the high flow paint to, and it is just as beautiful. And I think this would work really well for a collage, as well. I could either use the whole piece or I could use some of the piece I really like the metallic shine of the paint on the surface here and the way that it has pulled up off the gel plate. Now, the third print from this particular printing has worked just as well. It's absolutely beautiful. Look at all of those layers of color. This texture here is from the watery spray, adding that watery spray to break up the paint layers. I really love that technique. It's one of my favorites. And the bronze and the gold on it is just glorious. This piece also would make a fabulous collage. I could easily glue it on the canvas just as it is, or I could add it in sections to something else. So we have so many possibilities from one printing on the gel plant, three beautiful prints all really different, but they would all work well either as a whole piece on a canvas or on a different substrate, even if you just wanted to put it onto watercolor paper. Or I could take sections of it and create a whole new mixed media collage with any of them. So many options. What are we going to do with them? Well, I think it's such a great way to create really unique and beautiful prints a little bit different by using the painting application. Oh 6. Where Light Finds Us: I am so amazed at how beautiful these print paintings have turned out. This technique is so simple yet so incredibly effective. This is the one on the beautiful Ruby wine Coso paper. Look how glorious it looks. A I'm so excited. I'm going to put this on a canvas and I'm going to put it on a 16 by 20 inch canvas that is the same size as my piece of paper roughly, I'm just going to glue that down, turn the excess over the sides like how simple is this? I think then I might look at it in a vertical format because I really love the way the lines go like this up this way. Like that. Then I'm just going to have to decide what focal point I want to put on to finish the beautiful painting collage. I just think it needs a little something, but not much because I absolutely love the textures of the paper and the colors and the design of the lines from the paint application, just a little something. Maybe about there. That's the idea. I'll glue it down first and then when it's dry, I'll think about something probably another stencil because stencils are so easy. This time, I'm going to use gloss medium because this cosot paper is so thin and porous and beautiful, I didn't think that I really needed the thickness of the gel like I did last time. I'm just going to use the gloss medium to glue the beautiful cosot paper down. Super easy, super fun and then we'll have a fabulous painting on paper to develop. Now, I do find the gloss medium was easier to put on the coso paper than the gel medium I used in the first painting. I think because it's thinner, it's more fluid, and the coso paper being so fine and textured like this really doesn't need a thick gel. So that's a better idea. You see? That's why we have to do things twice because there's a second time we get better ideas. Now I'm going to let this dry and then I'm going to think about what I want to put on. I am going to put some gloss medium around the sides, tuck those sides under. You know how to do that, easy peasy. Then we'll see what we're going to add. Just going to add a little gloss medium to the top and also by brushing it is just going to help push the paper down to get all those air bubbles out if there is any. Now, it does wrinkle a little because it is so soft and textured, but I don't mind that too much. I like the texture. We are creating collage with paper after all, so you do have to expect a little texture. Just thinking that the gloss medium might help embed the paper more onto the canvas. You know, it's just another idea. And we have to try these things. I finished all the wrapping the paper around the sides. It's looking beautiful. We'll see how it dries and I really still do like the idea of putting it up this way and creating something in a vertical format. That's what I'm thinking about. I'm going to go and have a rummage through my stencils and just put a little something on it. Once it's dried, of course. Right, so the paper dried up beautiful on the canvas. I'm really happy with how it glued down, but I don't like the super gloss. I don't think it suits the beautiful texture of the paper. I think it's just too shiny. So that was a good lesson to learn, that I don't like this paper or shiny. It's very good to learn these lessons and it's very easy to change things. I'm going to put the same medium, but this time it's a fluid mat medium. I'm going to put that right over the beautiful painting before I continue. Then I have to decide what it is I want to add to it as a focal point or a purpose. What do I want my beautiful artwork to say? Does it have a message or a meaning? What do I want to add? I'm just going to put the fluid medium over it to knock back the gloss. Because I just don't like it. But now I know that next time I'll straightaway jump to the fluid matte medium when I'm gluing the paper down and it worked really well with this paper. It was very easy to glue down with the beautiful thin medium. That was good experience to learn. And then just like that Easy PZ now has a coating on mat on the top instead of gloss. I'll let this dry. Think about what I'm going to add to it because I do really like having focal points in my artwork. I like them to have an uplifting, hopeful message. That really is how I am as a person, so I'm going to go and find something that'll make me happy with this beautiful painting. Now I think this looks so much better with the matte medium instead of the gloss medium. I just think it really suits the textural paper. I always seem to like things glossy, but this time on this particular technique, with this particular paper, it just didn't look right, so I'm much happier with that. Now I want to add something on the beautiful background design, and I've pulled out this stencil with branches and birds, similar to the first one I used, but different and what I'm going to do is tape off half of it because it's just too much I'm thinking. Then I'm going to put it from this side. Sweeping out over here, maybe take off that bird, I'll take out areas I don't want and then I'll put it on with some beautiful metallic lunar paste. That'll look beautiful. Then to finish the whole piece, I'm going to put a satin varnish over all of it and that will give it not a matte flat, but not a super glossy. It really is in between and it works really well with these beautiful textural pieces. So that's the plan of how I'm going to finish this piece. I think these papers and prints have turned out incredibly well, so much better than I expected. And I'm absolutely loving the artworks that I'm creating from these beautiful gel plate paintings. 7. Time in Motion: I've got so many beautiful prints from this jelly printing technique. Have a look at this one. I think they're absolutely beautiful. I think all of them were successful, which is so exciting. Now, this time, I've got a 12 by 16 inch canvas. And what I'm going to do is put my piece of paper. This was printed on the so paper. And then I'm going to wrap, of course, the color around the side like that, and then I'm going to decide what I might want to do with it. I'm really not super sure, but I'm going to do something. Again, going to an a focal point, maybe some stencils or some more collage paper. Haven't actually decided, but what a beautiful place to start for a mixed media collage painting. This time, I'm going to use the mat gel medium because the paper is a little thicker than the beautiful soft textured one. Good covering of the mat gel medium. Put the paper straight on. Easy peasy. I'll wrap the paper round the sides, it's going to look fantastic. Right. So that is looking really good. This Czo paper glued down really well. All the sides are looking fabulous. Look how great they look with the colors turned over like that. Now I just have to decide which way do I want the painting to go that way or that way because it's abstract, it really could go any of these directions. So I'll have to think about that while it's drying and think about what else I want to add to it. I really like the texture of the paint on this paper. That water spray technique works so well and I really like these shapes of color. I'll have a little think about it. But the paper glued down actually better than I expected. So that's really good to know. Each print is another experiment and more ideas. The more you create your art and make your prints, then the better it will become because you learn what you like and what you don't like. You also learn different techniques and different materials. This paper didn't wrinkle at all because it's a little bit thicker than the other paper. It glued down really well and I'm very happy with the texture of the surface and the paint looks fabulous. I'll let that dry and think about what I'm going to do with it next. I'm amazed at how perfect this paper glued down onto the canvas. It was the first time I used this particular paper, and it has worked absolutely fabulous. All continued around the sides. The canvas is looking beautiful. Now, I've decided I'm going to add a clock stencil onto it. I think it just suits the coloring and feel of the painting that's on there now. I'm going to put this one on though I might mask out some of the number. I don't think I want that section there, so I'm going to put some tape over it to mask that out and I haven't decided exactly. Maybe I'll take that out. I really like this section through here and I like the clock face. I really like that bit there. But I do think the yellow is a bit strong for what I want. I'm going to put perhaps a little bit of this color, which is naples yellow reddish, I might just put scumble a bit over it to knock back the brightness of that yellow, I think will look just a bit better. And then I'm going to use a bronze. Haven't decided which bronze. One of the bronzes that I've got, either a strong coppery bronze or a brassy bronze. I'll have to have a look and think about it. Once this is dry, I'll put the stencil on, but I am absolutely loving the way the paper has stuck down. Just putting a little quinn violet over the naples reddish because I just wanted to blend it. It's going to be sitting behind the stencil of the clock face, but I just wanted to blend it in a bit more to what was already there. I'm pretty happy with that now. I better go and decide on which bronze I'm going to use. Okay, so I've pulled out some lunar paste, which is a stencil butter. It's quite thick. I really like using it with stencils. This one is gold rush, but it looks quite antique gold, and I think the color will work really well with the feel of what's on the painting here. Now I've also taped off the areas that I don't want to paint. A bit of low tech tape on the stencils, the areas that I don't want the paint to come through, and I think I'm going to put it slightly off center. Like that. That's my plan. So perhaps I'll put a little bit of tape on the top to hold it where I want it. I'm using a palette knife, and it's a matter now of just putting on a beautiful lunar paste. I do try to do as least amount of number of swipes with the paint as possible because if you go backwards and forwards like this on your stencil, it can catch underneath. I mean, you don't have to use a palette knife. I do because I like it nice and thick. You could use a brush and put it on thinner. More delicate, but, you know, I'm so not all about delicate. I like it thick and chunky. I like fat art, and that's just how I am. I put it on with a palette, nice and thick and try to get it on in a nice smooth layer. Just like that. Let's see how we did. Tana ta. I am pretty happy with that. Look how good that looks. I think the colour blends in beautifully. I'm really happy with how this beautiful painting has dried up. The stencil looks great, the color looks great, and I just so love. The painting on this paper that's been glued onto the canvas, I think it's so special. So I'm just going to finish the artwork by using a satin varnish. I don't want it super glossy. I don't want it flat, so satin varnish is the way to go. I like this atilio one. I put it on with a brush, super easy, super quick, straight over the top. What I like about varnishing the artworks, especially when they're on paper like this, is that it seals the paint and the paper. I also helps with UV protection. You can wipe it over with a slightly damp cloth to get the dust off it, it will look beautiful for years to come and that's the plan. Once this is dry, I'm going to tape and string it, and then it's going to look stunning up on the wall. I think it looks like time in motion. How incredibly exciting. I think it's absolutely beautiful and I'm so happy with this piece. 8. To Finish: So what did you think of my fabulous new technique of gel plate painting? So here we are with our finished paintings. What began as a simple print has now become something layered, expressive, and completely original. And that transformation is really what the process is all about. I really hope this class has shown you that gel plate printing can be so much more. There's so many directions, so many exciting possibilities for this fabulous, creative medium. Every print holds possibilities, and it's just a matter of seeing what it wants to become. Now, of course, you don't have to use the colors that I've used or the stencils, or even the style and application of putting the paint on. Explore for yourself what you're passionate about. What are your colors? What are your textures? What do you want to create with this fabulous process? Try different colors, different palettes and definitely different papers, 'cause they all do respond differently to that paint application. There's so many ways to finish the prints and turn them into exciting mixed media artworks. I can't wait to see what you've created, so make sure you show me. Now, don't forget if you do want to know exactly the materials I've used, have a look in your class notes. I've got a list there for you. And if you have any questions or problems, you can email me. You can find out more of who I am on frol.com, and don't forget to check out my other classes. I know you'd absolutely love the massive beautiful journey of 100 days of collage. It's quite funny, really, how this particular class came out of that series. I was so passionate about this technique when I stumbled into it with my abstract expressionist style that I had to take it further. I had to create these beautiful paintings, and I had to share it with you. I'd love to see what you're going to create. It's so special to see how everybody responds differently and takes the idea in different directions. You can also join my Facebook group and show me all of your fabulous artworks in there. There's so many wonderful people. It's a great community for sharing our creativity. Right. So it's now back to the studio to develop some more ideas, and I can't wait to get started on our next creative adventure.