Transcripts
1. Introduction to Gelatin Prints: Hello. My name is received CLO and I am a graphic designer and mixed media artist. I live in Victoria, British Columbia. I'm super excited to present this new class to you. It's called gel prints and patterns, and in this class, I'm going to show you how to make your own gel printing plate. I know that my my online students are from all over the world, and I know it's really hard, and sometimes they're expensive to find jail printing plates. So I'm really going to show you a cheap way to do it on, and we'll compare the pros and cons of using one or the other for a class project you're going Teoh create a cooling, layered bouquet in a little mid century vase, and it's gonna have that Gretel five that I love so much so we'll start by gathering some leaves outside and then to create some patterns on our plate. And I will work with, um, acrylic paint. I'm gonna demo in wash acrylic wash, but you can use any kind of acrylic paint that you that you like and I won't work with layers and masking sub struck tive techniques. And then we'll add line work and wife, paint, marker and even what color again. So this is a really simple and fast technique, and it's full of surprises and happy accidents. You never know what's gonna happen when you pull that piece of paper, and sometimes it's a masterpiece, and sometimes it's a disaster and it's OK. You just print over it so it doesn't matter. It's super fun, and, um, I hope you join me and try it. Let's do it CEO.
2. Materials: So let's go over the material you're going to need for, uh, this project. So what, you're gonna need to collect some leaves out there that we're gonna use to print on your on our plates, and you need a plate, a gel gelatin printing plate, and I'm gonna show you how to make your own in the next video. So this is a plate that we're going to make. If you don't feel like making your own plate, you can get one at the art supply store or order it online. Uh, this is, uh, jelly brand. And there's also another good brand that's called a gel press. And you can get, you know, a lot of different sizes. They they do tend to get a little expensive. It's a little cheaper to make your own, but it's their mawr durable than the ones that you make yourself. So there those air pretty, pretty good. And both brands are very, very good. You're also going to need a rare I use, um, two inch one. I like it because it's smaller and it gives you some lines with the edges. That's why I like to use a smaller one I always use this'll card stock from Staples. I think it's great because you can pull a ton of prints and you have to worry about, you know, using a really good paper, and you can just experiment mawr and it's less dress hold and you think really fancy watercolor paper, Different printmaking paper. You might need to have something to imprint textures, but that's really up to you. You don't have to, uh, because there's so many things you can use to print that's like It's really infinite. You need a brush and a little watercolor set, maybe even like just one color of water. Color is fine. You'll need the, um, marker. I used a Faber Castell, and I think this the one is 10.6. Yes, and I use a post ca posca paint pen, the PC three m, and, uh, you'll need some paint. I like to use this equity gua sh from Liquid Tex because it's very matte, and, uh, it's got a really great pigment in it, and, um, it's really easy to work with. So I I love using this brand I, usually by the white in the cheaper if you're going to use a lot of white begin by another brand on This is also Matt Acrylic. So I just really like the mat the mat look, but you can use any kind of acrylics. Doesn't have to be acrylic wash, and you can use some math medium to put on your leaves if you want them to last a little bit longer. And scissors and 10 soul, too. Draw your shapes and that's about it, Um, let's get started.
3. Making a Gelatin Plate: in this video, I'm going to show you how to make your own gelatin printing plate. You can download the recipe in the Resource Projects section, and this is a recipe that will make about a cup of liquid. And I'm gonna use this container that I bought at the dollar store, and it's about 5.5 inches by five inches. And if you need to make a bigger plate, let's say you use this container. Um, you would probably just want to measure how many cups of liquid fit in there to give you about 1/2 inch to 3/4 in just thickness for a gel plea, and then you will multiple E. Multiply this recipe by the amount of cups that you need of liquid in your container because it can use just about anything you can find you can use. Ah, cake pan on. This is just a basket. You can use something like this, just just plastic containers. And if you want to be able to use both sides of your plate, you might want to make sure that there's no bumps or nothing written here, and what I did here is that just usual sandpaper. Just kind of to exclude it so that, you know you don't see it. I don't see the imprint of that in the in the plate, so let's get started. So when you first is, uh, you going to start with half a cup of water cold water and you're gonna use this store pot gelatin that you can buy at the supermarket? There's a spoon. You need just boot. They're gonna need three packs of gelatin for half a cup. I'm gonna take this in here and you're gonna see it's going to get a little bit lumpy. But that's OK, because we're gonna put it in the microwave for about a minute. You know, I'm gonna start, so you see, does like some lumps in there. But just mix it up as much as you can first, and yeah, it's that bad. It's not bad, but what I like to put it in the microwave for about a minute because that's gonna help me smooth it out. Okay, so I put it in the microwave for about a minute, and it's pretty good. I'm going to add my other ingredients and then I can always put it back into Mykolaiv. Another 30 seconds I don't like. So you're gonna use glycerin about 1/4 cup of glycerin and confront that in the drugstore? You could probably buy it online, but I buy it this one at pharma save. So about 1/4 cup, a blistering. And then you gotta do also 1/4 cup of, uh, rubbing alcohol with this oneness. 70%. And, uh, I think you could probably use any kind of alcohol. You know, if you have gin or vodka, E would probably work, but, uh is up to you. It's just because you don't want it to mold. If you just just use water, it might, You know, your your gel plate is going to kind of start molding eventually, so that kind of keeps the germs away. All right, So stinky. Okay, it looks pretty good. I'm thinking that I might not need to put it back in the microwave, but just to be sure, because I see, like, little bubbles like that, and I don't want it to show in the texture. I'm gonna put it back for another 30 seconds. Yeah, so now you can see it looks pretty good. Now look out all nice. It isn't smooth and clear. I'm ready to pour it into my container. This is so I think this is a little to re organizer that they sell at the dollar store. But we can find that, you know, and drift shops or anywhere. Yes, I'm just gonna delicately pour it in. Looks good. And sometimes you'll get some bubbles on top. I don't see a whole lot of bubbles that looks pretty good. Usually when I demo, something always goes wrong. But But if you see little bubbles, you can just pop him. It's what I do. If you have a lot of phone, you might want to just take a little piece of, um, it'll pay seven paper towel and just kind of, you know, just skimmed the top and get the foam out. But this one looks really good and again just pop them. And when it's pretty smooth, then just let it sit there for about I would say about eight hours to make sure that it's set. I just usually make it the night before, and I just used, you know, just leave it overnight and that use it the next day. So because this is like a cooking show, I prepared one. See, I'm gonna move this over, and then I am prepared one for you that I did last night, and I'm gonna show you how you get it out of there. Okay? So now it's pretty good. I'm It's pretty hard. What I do is I kind of just pull the edge gently. Pull on the edge here, C Can you see? Yeah. Very gently like this. You can probably run and knife around the edge to Okay, So I got a knife. I'm gonna run a knife along the edges to make it easier to take it off the mold we could and voila. Hoops. There's your plate. It looks pretty good. See, there you go. You have a plate and you can start printing with that Walla
4. Pros and Cons: Let's compare the difference between the to place. This is Steve commercial grade gel plate, and this one is the one that we made the handmade gelatin printing plate. So first, the cost. So off course, that's where it's really advantages to make your own plate, because for this plate, it costs me probably less than $5 in material. And if I buy this size plate in here in Canada anyway, probably in the US, it's cheaper. Many candidates would be about $45. So if you think about it, it's about 10% of the costs off getting a plate in a store. So so definitely, definitely, uh, an advantage. And also, if you can't find one in the store where you live, then you can actually still make your own. Um, the other thing, that is the big difference. Another big difference is that it's, uh, if you make your own plate, you can make any size you want, so the container is with dictates the size of in the shape of your plate. Can use any kind of container to make your plate so you can do that. Size can do this. You can't do a round shape. You can use a do a really, really big plate, which is pretty amazing. You can do a really large surface, so I mean, that would cost a fortune to buy things like that. So so that's another advantage. And the other thing, that's great. I think for me personally is that I really like the square corners and I don't really like the room and all the ones that you confide. I'll have the round corners and I really I prefer the square, the street corners. So that's another thing that is Thea Vantage over the commercial grade. The other thing you can do is also you can make it as thick as you want, because you basically dictate how think you want to make it. So, um, that's another thing, because if you buy the smaller plates, the smaller format of the commercial plate it's pretty thin. So the other thing that is very different is the texture, so the texture, of course, the commercial plate is smooth and you're not gonna have any bumps or anything on there, but you can actually get a pretty smooth surfaced with the one that you make this is decide that's underneath, and this is the other side. So that's a little bit. I would say that that's a little bit bumping, but I really actually like the bumpy texture. I think it really adds to the texture of your of your print. So it just depends what you want if you want it really smooth, um, and very clean. Then maybe you're better off with this kind of plate. Uh, but the other thing is that it behaved differently. Wit paint. So this one stays moist a lot a lot longer, so you can actually have a little more time to play. What, your paint. So it just very different. I just behaves different. It's really hard to explain, and you just have to try it. The place where the commercial plate winds is durability. It's definitely a lot more durable than the one that you make yourself. I I used glycerin and alcohol and stuff, so it's not going to mold, so it's probably gonna last a very long time. But, uh, this is one that I made about over maybe a month ago, so you can see it's already thinner and it still works. But Actually, this was my first once. It is a big bubble in there, so I'm gonna see if we can melt this and do another one. So we're going to try Teoh, actually, um, cut it up and see if we can melt it in the microwave. I'm just going to put it in here. I mean, this is something else you can do. Actually, if you want a specific shape, you could probably just cut it, you know, and make a shape and then start printing with that. So, yeah, that's something else you could do with these plates. But we're gonna try this. I'm hoping it's gonna work, cause I read somewhere that you could do that. But let's try to put in the microwave, see if we can re melt it to make another plate and make it last longer. So it actually worked. I put in the microwave for a couple of minutes, So maybe a minute and 1/2 and it melted. So I So I took a square plate like this and I cut it up and I put it in the microwave, and it actually is now liquid, and I'm going to decide because that's something you can do. You can change the shape you see. You know you want to have around played so you can melt your square plate and turn into a round plate. So now I'm going to put it in here, and it's a little dirty. But that's OK. That's fine. It's not gonna show up in the paint. So now I re melted my plate and have a new plate. So same thing you can just, like, pop your little. You really think you can probably diluted with a little bit of alcohol to because it's very thick and, um, that's it.
5. Collecting Textures: so the best way to create really interesting textures on your jail printing plate is to use leaves and you confined outside so I would go out there and collect a whole bunch of stuff . And if e means much easier if you press them in the book, so what I usually do is I just go and I put him in between a piece of paper and I just put him in the in heavy book and I just leave them, maybe overnight. Or you can print with them and put him back in the book, because otherwise day, it's a little harder Teoh to print and assumes you start printing with your with your leaves. You'll see that you'll get some paint on your leave like here. So I've been printing with this a lot, and now there's paint on that. It's gonna become like a little mascot that used over and over hope it's falling apart, too. So it's it's pretty fragile, and it's OK because it's it's texture, but yes, so go go ahead and just find some interesting leaves and press them into a book, and then we're gonna print with them. Thea thing you could use is some. You could use some stencils that you can make yourself or you can buy them. You can use also anything that you can use to imprint on texture on the plate. So this, like, infinite amount of thing that you can use. But I would just keep it super simple for this project. And actually, if you just find like one leaf, that would be all you need. So But I just like to have a variety of stuff and experiment with different shapes. So go out there and gather some stuff and let's come back and use them on a plate. So if you get attached to a specific leave that you really like and you've been printing with it a lot and, uh, you worry that is going to fall apart, that's something you can do is. But I put some math medium on it, and that's gonna help. It's gonna become like a little, um, a little stencil that you can use over and over again. It's gonna protect it a little bit, so I would just put Matt medium on both sides and let it dry. And then, um, you'll be able to use it more without it falling apart. So I did that with some of these leaves here, and it's great. It's almost like leather, really great texture. So I would just do that, press them into a book and then put some met medium on it and then just use him away.
6. Creating Masks: So now it's time to create our vast shapes and or flowers. So we're going to create, um, shapes that are going to be our negative speak creator, negative space on our plate. So we're gonna block these areas. But so I would say, pick maybe three different shapes of Oz. You can look around your house. I just found this at a store today. It's really cute security, cute shape. So maybe I'll just do something like that. It could be like super wonky does not to be, you know? Doesn't have to be straight. I would do it about maybe three inches. That might be a little too on then, Uh, you know, anything you can see around your house? That's interesting, given this thing is kind of cool, like the shape. And I love to collect these old recipe books. They always have relief, interesting shape and kind of midcentury, uh, style. She's. And I also created a whole Pinterest board all about shapes. Uh, you go. So what if you can see, But so there's a whole lot of different ideas here for inspiration, So check it out. Uh, the link is there in, um in their resource can find a link for the Pinterest board and also in the class description. So I'm gonna just go ahead and creates three shapes. Okay, This one, I'll make a little smaller like that. And then, um, I'm gonna create, like, shapes for my flowers. I'm gonna put in my face, so I'm gonna use, maybe, like, a circle and 1/2 circle and maybe just kind of a little oval kind of shape, and I'm gonna cut everything out. Okay? So now I have my ship, my three shapes, bath shapes and my flowers, and I'm gonna pick one up. Probably gonna use this one for my final print. All right, so let's get the get to the next step.
7. Making Monoprints: Okay, so now I have my plate. Oh, made up. I have my Leafs. I have my little mask that I created for my vases. And I have something to add some texture. I have my gray er and I'm gonna use a couple colors of gua, sh scarlet and orange. And I probably add a little bit of the white, too. So the first thing I want to do is create a layer of texture. And this is the print print that I'm not really gonna use. I'm just creating texture first, So I think to add a little interest to your plate and to add texture, I like to kind of mix color first. Just not a flat color. Okay, you have to put the top back on these things. Otherwise, this is what happened. And I really like the line that the Breyer creates because that adds texture to and I'm gonna add, I think a little bit of white to this. I don't usually wash my prayer. I just kind of roll it on a piece of paper just to take most of the paint out. I love a bit of this just to add a little dimension. There you go. It kind of gives you an idea of what color you're gonna get. I think it's all two pinks. I'm gonna add a little more yellow, and then he can go across like this to create some lines. Okay, so now I'm looking at my first layer, and I'm going to create some texture for my backgrounds. I'm gonna put some of my leaf there, not maybe these and that, and maybe even, like, imprint some of this in a corner or something like that. Okay, so now I'm gonna pull a print from that. You kind of take a piece of paper, and you just center it and you can use a piece of cardboard to press evenly. Because on your jail pleat, okay. And then I'm pulling my first sprint. This is my background. And, um so this is kind of looks cool as it is right now, But what I'm interested in is Mawr the ghost image of this. So you'll see what I mean. So I'm gonna pull these and you see the imprint of the leaves, which I really like. I'm gonna pull these out, and then I'm going to create my little my little composition here of my face. I'm gonna do put my little flowers here 23 the top, and then this is what I'm going to pull and it's going to be my one. But I want for this project. But all right, let's see what happens again. It's You can t control what's gonna happen. You can try to control what's gonna happen, but you can't. This much is Do you want Teoh? You cannot control what's gonna happen. So let's see what happened. Drumroll. So do you see, like all these interesting texture that I get So I actually really like that? I think I could probably pull another print imprint of this cause there's some cool stuff that's left on the plate. And also, when you pull your pieces, your little mask, they end up with really interesting textures, and you can use them in your collage, right? I want to try to pull what's left on here just to see what happens, because it's really pretty. Do you like a piece of cardboard? Let's see what happens. And at the same time it cleans your plate for the next print, so that is really awesome. I think this is great. I really love that. So So here's a reprint, though. This one is your 1st 1 to create your background. This is a 2nd 1 when you create your little vase, okay? And then this is the 3rd 1 So they all look great. We're gonna be working mostly with this one here. But, um, we can work with that one, too, because it's again. It doesn't always work that way because I'm going to try another one right now and you'll see it's gonna look completely different. And that's kind of interesting. But, you know, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna leave this here and pull a ghost print of that another one, because I think that I'm not seeing quite enough texture on this, and I kind of like the last print that we did here. So why don't we try to leave this here and pull another proud to see groups see what's gonna happen? Let's do this. And that's pushed pretty 100 on this. Let's see. So, yeah, so I really like this cause you get more texture and, um, it's more interesting, and then we can see if we can pull. If we can pull this, whatever is left there, it's old trial. You have to go with the flu because you were trying to do something. But then it turned into something else, and that's fine. That's life. So there you go. This is really good, too. We can really like that. I'd also like this one, and this one is a little too dark, but I still like it. Um, and this is the 1st 1 So there's so many layers of this which is just a couple colors and, uh, show you how we can take it to the next step in the next video. So if you have a regular store bought, uh, gelatin plate and you want to do that same exercise, what you can do is make yourself a little a mask like this. And, um, whatever size you want and you wanna have if you wanna have to square corners because I think the problem for me with these places that if you print the whole thing is gonna be have around corners and I kind of like the square corners. So I'm just gonna show you a little example, on doing the same exercise with this door bought plate, and they they will behave differently. Also very different texture. And, like you were gonna add some of this. It's kind of a different animal. It really is. But it's great that both grade is just different results. I'm gonna make my little when we leave this in there, and I'm gonna do the same thing with my little leaf right here and then that here first, some of this in here. Okay. And I'm gonna put that you would have to probably press a little bit harder on this one because it's a lot more rigid then there than the one we make ourselves. You know, when we make ourselves going like Jell O, this is more. This is harder. Okay, I see. Okay, so we have our first layer. Um, I guess if I didn't want this to happen, I would have put my leafs underneath, but it's settle harder to work with. Mm. Okay. Okay. So now I am going to do my little here. See, there's not that much hate lift. It's really not that much paint left. I don't even know that I can pull this, Let's try it. I'll see if I can pull the ghost image of that, but it doesn't stay on the plate the way the other one works. Yeah, that doesn't quite work, but I think I can probably add some paint here and let's see what happens. Let's see if we can pull more of the ghost image from the previous layer and we can. So you see, it's very different. You know, I like it, too, and it's very clean, so it's very kind of different. So let's see if we can pull one MAWR print out of that. Maybe if we add some wife. You know, if I take these out and I add a little bit of white to try to pull whatever is left on the plate, we'll try it. You can see already there's something coming through. Okay, lets see. Drum roll interesting from So it's interesting. But I think I really like this previous ones better, a little more going on. You feel some of the shape from before, but I really don't see any of my leafs off anymore, you know, they opposed to the other plate where really pick up a lot more of the leaf, so it's a different kind of a different animal, like I said, And you just have to experiment in play and change your mind along the way because it's going Teoh, do whatever it wants to do. It's in charge, you're not in charge. So even if you think you're in charge, you're not in charge, OK, so a lot of time when I want to clean my plate, I'll just put some white all over my plate. You could clean it with baby wipes or running under water, but take a good way to clean it is to put a layer of white on it and then pull a print. And again, sometimes it works. Let's see. Yeah, so this time it worked. And, um, it just so my put my plate is completely please. And I have kind of this interesting great, which is more of a background or collage paper, or you could do you know, whatever you want to do with it. But it's still kind of an interesting texture to use in something, and you have a clean plate clean slate. So all right, let's go to the next step and start putting some, uh, uh details on our paintings.
8. Finishing Touches: Okay, so I got some pretty interesting prints here from my little section here. This was from the store bought jelly plate. And this one is the ones with Earth homemade once. And, uh, yeah, I have a lot of good, good stuff to work with, so I am gonna had some details. Teoh my prince, and I'm gonna start with this one. So we want to add some interesting detail to finish off our illustration. So, um, I think a good way. A neat ideas Go back to my Pinterest board, the vase been put board and look at all these cool textures in, you know, line, work and stuff. So it's mostly line work at this point that we're gonna end, but, yeah, you're going to get some good ideas from from that so you can work on on tracing paper if you want on top. Or usually, I just go street to street on and see what happens. It's kind of the way I work. So I'm gonna go in and do my stems and here are gonna do this one and this one here, and then I'm gonna add some stuff that comes out of the square here just to break up. So here, I'm gonna add some leaves. You can add some flowers. You can add anything you want. I'm gonna do the same thing on this side just to add a little interest, and then I'm gonna finish my flowers. Of course. They're all imaginary flowers you wanted kind of graphic and style eyes. I'm gonna do this here and then here. I don't know what I'm gonna do. Maybe just a regular flour, and I'm gonna go over like that. But so I'm gonna work on my boss, which is gonna be, um I want to add some details here. So maybe some lines and maybe some texture here, like diamonds are elect the retro feel of these not doing a really good job. But that's OK. Life, maybe add a little scallops here, so I'm gonna leave it like that for for now. And then I'm gonna add a little bit of white post up a pen, and I'm gonna have some detail here, maybe like thoughts, maybe some scallops and maybe some lines in the last step for my situation is I'm gonna add a little bit of water color. So I'm have my little watercolor set here, and I want to pick something that's kind of that works with my pal in here and maybe maybe kind of this green here. She's going to be here from just touch of color and something else you can do is paint right over the acrylics here. I'm gonna go right over here just to kind of tone down this white here. Yeah, I kind of like that. - So this one is done, and I'm gonna try a different one plus one here. Messed it up here, but that's fine.
9. Class Project: so the steps for your class project is to role. You played first wit, a couple of colors and I would say pick to warm colors or too cold colors, and you can also add a little bit of white for texture. You really don't your plate and then you add pick a couple of your leaves that you have, and then you pull the first print, which is this wonderful. And then after you're done with this sprint, you take your leaves out, and then you pick one of the shapes that you cut out face, and then you put your three flowers and then you pull a print from that, which is gonna give you something like that. And then, um, you leave everything there and then you pull the last print, which is going to be more length, something like that. If you leave your if you take this shape out, you're gonna have something like this so you can do either way. The one that we kind of work on toe add lines is the middle one, so it doesn't really matter. So once you're done with your three prints, clean your plate and it's probably already pretty clean. And then you're going to add some, uh, marker lines and then we're gonna add some postcard paint, and then you can add a little bit of water color and that's it. You're done and put it on, um, in the class project section and share it with everybody, and I can't wait to see what you do. So go ahead, experiment. And it doesn't have to look like this. It can do totally your own thing if you want, That's OK, is just about having fun and trying stuff. So go ahead and try a bunch of stuff and experiment and try not to control anything because you really can't. So just go ahead, just let it loose and see what happens. And you can share if you want. You don't have to share, but I would love to see it. But I mean, the important thing is that you have fun and you're trying stuff so so fun
10. Thank you: I think so. Thank you again for taking my class. I hope you had a great time. If you want to upload a project, you can do so in the project section below. That's also where you can find materialists and also they the recipe for the jail printing plate. If you want to share on Instagram, you can use hashtag gel prints and patterns. And you could also attacked me at UCD. And if you don't follow me already on skill show, you can do that. Click the little full button up there and you'll be the 1st 1 to know when I published a new class of does give away or any other exciting news. So I hope to see you soon and, uh, vehicle.
11. Bonus Project: So for this bonus lesson, I'm going to show you how I created this little print. I used the first print that we have that we did for our series of three prints. If you remember the 1st 1 I told you to put it aside, and then we were working on the second print with the ghost image. But for for this one, actually, you just use the first image that you do. And it actually happened by accident, because I was I received this this black marker in, ah, quarterly subscription box, and it's, ah, call a pig MMA sense say from Sakura, and I just wanted to try it. So I started. I just grabbed a piece of paper that was on my desk, and I started doodling with it, and, um and I might actually really like how it looks. So I decided to grab my watercolor and maybe add a little bit like a complementary color that would work really well with, um the this image. And then I just starting doodling with watercolor on it so that I took my black marker again and added some leaves and to break out the frame a little bit, but I still got it, needed something. So I just took it to my sewing machine and stitch a little frame around it all the way around, and I didn't worry too much. I didn't do like a really straight line, as you can see, but I think it looks great because, um, it's a wonky and adds character, so I wouldn't worry too much about doing this perfect frame because it's gonna be really impossible stitching on paper like that and ah ah, it's always a good idea to sign your piece anywhere you want. And there you go. You have this really cool little illustration, and what I did is I. I tried to find a background that was complementary or color that would make the color pop . And that's how I ended up with this image that I put on instagram that everybody loves. So now you know how to do it. Grab one of your first print and then, ah, at some lines and somewhat a color, and it'll stitching and you have masterpiece. There you have it. So I hope you enjoy your bonus lesson, and, um, I'll see you in my next class
12. Bonus: Making a 12 x 12 plate: In this bonus lesson, I wanted to show you how I
made this really big plate. What I use is a cake pan
that I bought on Amazon. And I like it because it's got really nice square corners. And what I did is I
multiply my recipe by six because I put a
measure like six cups of water in there and I
can measure a high it was and I figured that it was pretty much the height that
I that I wanted. And then I just did the
regular recipe like I did for the smaller plate and
mix it all in there, put in the microwave
until it was clear, and then poured it in here
and let it sit overnight. So now we're going to unfold it. And then I want to put it onto
something that's easier to use when I'm working
on it, right? Because it's pretty big. So I want a surface that's gonna be I want something that's kinda put it on
and carry it around. So what I'm gonna do is use
this piece of chip board. I'm going to cover it with some like contact
paper or anything you can use to line your your
shelves and stuff like that. So I liked this one because it's the width texture,
That's pretty awesome. So what I'm gonna do is I'm
just going to put a layer of that on this piece of cardboard. And I think I just need to be
able to separate the layer, which is always the hardest
part of this process. And this doesn't need to
be perfect or anything. I just I just don't want to
put it straight on cardboard. I want to protect
it a little bit. So I'm just gonna do
this right? Then. Cut it. And I'm just going to, you can either roll the
edges like this or trim it. Where I'm going to do is
just kinda folded like that. Does need to be super clean. I just want a surface
that I can use to, you know, you might
want to cut it. What bigger here, longer so you can
actually fold it around. So okay, so let's unmoored the plate and I'll have this ready to
transfer it to that. Voila. Okay. So what you do is like
like the other plate, you just like push
gently to just take the makes sure that it's
not stuck to anything. This was this pretty
thick actually. I just do that all the way around because I
don't want this too. I've never made a
big plate like this. So I'm kind of excited
about using it. And you know, if I really like working with a big
plate like that, I might just buy one because I know it's
going to last longer. So look at this very thick. It's great though.
Feels pretty sturdy. Then what I'm gonna do, I am going to see what I mean. You need a place to put it. So maybe I'm going to flip it. That way. You go. Look at that big jello,
big Jell-O mold. Alright, so I'm ready. Now I'm ready to
print with this. Let's try it. So I have these leaves here, and I'm going to
use Quin gold and my brayer and just try
to see how this works. So sometimes with a new plate, some weird things happen
while this big love it. But we'll see, we'll
see what happens. You need a lot more
paint obviously. I don't want to put too much. Let's try putting these beautiful leaves
patterns on here. And I'm going to use this paper that I have
sulfite tapered as 12 by 18. See what happens. Use a clean roller to
obviously not that clean. Alright, let's see what happens. Let's see what happens. Oh, lab works. Great. Look at that. All right. Let's
see if we can pull the ghost print on
a separate sheet. Looking at all these
beautiful textures. Alright, drum rolls. Let's see what happens. It's a brand new plate and it seems to be
working quite well. Look at that. Wow. That's amazing. So you can really grab all beautiful texture
on those leaves to me. So yeah, so try it with different leaves and
different things. And you can print a really
large pieces of papers. And just like experiment
and have fun with it. So I'm using mostly
golden fluid acrylics and transparent bunch
of transparent colors. But you can also use any type of other paint and play
with transparencies and overlays and try also different
types of leaves and creating patterns
and just have fun.
Lucie Duclos, Design + Mixed Media
