Gelliplate Magic: Tell Your Story with Charcoal Transfers

1. Gelliplate Magic: Tell Your Story with Charcoal Transfers: If you have a strong desire to create art, but you feel insecure about your drawing skills, then this might be the class for you. Hi, I'm Jenna Marisha. I am a Dutch art teacher living in Antwerp with history in art therapy. What I love to do most is to get you off your chair and to your art table and just let go and have some fun with art without putting so much pressure on yourself, because that is the thing that holds us back to most. In this class, I will be teaching you how to merge photography and printmaking using the jelly plate. And I'm going to teach you how to make charcoal transfers, whether you are a beginner or a more experienced artist who is in a rut or you just have an off day and you don't really feel like drawing something from scratch. This is perfect to squeeze in some creative time and have some fun along the way. If you're ready to merge the magical world of printmaking with photography, then come puppy. Then come in and let's play. Are you coming with me, puppy? Yes. Yes, we're gonna have fun. Yes. 2. Welcome to Class: Welcome to class. If you haven't got a jelly play yet, I think it's a really nice investment. Some people think they are expensive, but when you compare them to traditional printing press, they are really, really cheap. I don't think it's too bad. And you can do so much with them. You can work abstract, you can create portraits. I have even created handmade journals with them. And they're also very lovely inspiration for those days where you're just not that inspired. Yeah, I highly recommend it. Let's start by picking out a couple of reference photos that are interesting to you. I am using two just to keep the class compact, but you can merge so many photos into one image if you would like to. Yeah, think about what you want to tell the world. You can find some inspiration in my Pinter sports and I will include a link in the PDF that you can download in your class resources. I will also include a supply list and some of my vintage ephemera. Another thing, another thing I would like to mention is that I'm using charcoal pencil. It's six from generals. I like this one the best because it doesn't move around on you when you're putting on your paint or your medium. That is a real plus for me. But you can use any kind of charcoal that you like. Just know that some kind maybe get mixed in with your paint. If you're okay with that, then I'm okay with it. Now, let's start with assembling our story. Poppy, I need to get up, let's make some art. 3. Let's Make the Transfer: Let's assemble our charcoal transfer For this lesson, you'll need your photos either printed out or on your ipad, like I have over here. If you're using your ipad, then it's recommended that you download a tracing app. My app isn't really available in the app store anymore, but I found one for free. And it's called AR Drawing. And the reason why you need a tracing app is that if you trace it like this or in your photo app, then it will move as you are trying to trace it. And we want to prevent that with feature right here where you can lock your photo. Okay, so I want this lady to look at a bird and I'm just going to take my jelly plate. Doesn't matter, that's in its packaging. Because I want to see where I want this lady and how big she should be. I want her to look at a bird right here. Maybe I would like her to be something like this. I think that's nice. Then I will lock this photo. I'm going to put my tracing paper on the ipad. I'm going to position where I want her to be. I think I want underneath right here. I'm just going to take a little bit of scotch tape to make my life easier because otherwise it's pretty smooth, it will move like this. That will save you a ton of frustration. While you're drawing, I'm going to take my charcoal pencil. It's six B from generals. And really like this brand, You can use any charcoal that you like. You can use willow or vine charcoal. But this is easier to draw. You can leave it rather crisp, or if you want to, you can also take a blending stump and make your shadows a little bit more subtle in some places. This is the beauty of the charcoal transfers. I don't know if you have ever done the magazine transfers, but it's pretty rigid. You only have to contrast. But here, you can make little subtle bits of shadow whenever you think that you overdone it. You can just take your eraser and remove a little bit of it there. And this is why I really like using the ipad because I can't easily fit this on there. What do you think? I always check my image after I remove it from my ipad because nine out of ten times I will forget something. Let's recap the most important takeaways from this lesson. First of all, choose photos that you feel attracted to the most in this moment. Whether that's 23 or five, it doesn't matter as long as you can tell your own story. If you choose to use your ipad to trace your drawing, then make sure you download the tracer app like AR drawing, that is free to use work from left to right to prevent smudging. Or if you're left handed then go the other way from right to left. It will save you a ton of ing if you do now. If you're ready, let's go to the next lesson. 4. Let's Make the Transfer: Okay, let's transfer this onto this squishy jelly plate. If you've never tried this, then I highly recommend these because they make printing at home so easy. Okay, this is the side with a charcoal and we want to put that on the plate. Let's see, I want it quite high. While you're rubbing your drawing onto the jelly plate, make sure that it doesn't move because we want a very crisp image. You don't need to prepare the jelly plate, you just want charcoal to make contact with the plate. We're going to really burnish it onto there using the back of a spoon. You want to hold it in place because it can't move around on you. Let's see, let's take a peek. Awesome. Right now that you know how to make the transfer, let's go have some fun with it. 5. Editing Your Prints: In the following lessons, I will teach you a couple of techniques to bring your story to life. If you are more experienced with a jelly plate, then feel free to add in your favorite techniques to really make it your own and yeah, have some fun with it. Are you ready? Let's good. 6. Painting by Hand: Let's start off with giving this great, its iconic yellow belly. I'm going to take some regular acrylics. I'm going to paint it right on there. I'm going to use a soft bristled brush at brush because that is the easiest to do it. If you have thicker bristles, then you're going to get some textures and maybe you want it, maybe you don't. There's always a little bit of texture, but the thicker the bristle, the more white streaks you'll see in between your paint. And I don't want that right now. I'm working in the directions of the feathers, more or less. Not up and down, I almost forgot. But I also have to paint in the white part of its face because I don't want to completely white background, I need to paint this. If you're going to do the pull off print with white acrylic, then you can skip the step. This time I will use a smaller brush to make my life easier. There we go. Now that you know how you can add some pops of color to your prints, let's move on to the next lesson and I will teach you another technique. 7. Little Dots: If you're going to layer two or more techniques on top of each other, then it's important to know that whatever you do first is going to show up in the front of your print. In this case, I'm going to give her a necklace. I wanted to be on top of her shirt. I need to start with a necklace. I'm going to show you a fine art supply. I have these fine line applicators. You have them in different widths. They also go on top of the fluid acrylics by Golden. Only the small bottles, they fit perfectly on there. I don't want you to run out to the art supply store and try to get these unless you want to. I totally understand. But you can do the same thing with something like a Posca pen, the acrylic pens as I'm going to get the cap off. Yeah, this is basically a needle. I'm going to start on this piece of scrap paper because it's always a little bit wobbly. Very fine. Do you can be like me and make a necklace or you can use it as a background pattern, whatever your imagination tells you to do. Now, before we can do the next layer, this needs to dry completely, or else it will mix in with each other. While we do that, let's move on to the next lesson. 8. Stamping Found Objects: In this lesson, I'm going to teach you how to stamp found objects into your paints. And if you have them, the crochet doilies are really fun to jelly print with. That's what I'll be using. But you can use anything that you like. You can even use rubber stamps and make some patterns with that. You need to be quick about it though. I don't know if you can do the whole shirt, but maybe that's me projecting my own slowness onto you. So just experiment with it. I'm going to try and not I have too thick of a layer of paint like I was doing there with the shoulder because that is going to be a pain in the butt later on because it needs to be really dry. Before you take your print. Right now, I can make the decision of going over this necklace. I like this wide neck. Now, while this is still wet, I am going to take my doily. I'm going to gently push all the bits onto the shirt. Again, perfection is highly overrated. The beauty about the crochet stamping is that it's more organic than a stencil or something or a machine made stamp. And that is why I like to use these now I think that will get a nice pattern like this. Do not go over it with a Brayer because you'll remove most of the paint there. It's like she has a tie dye shirt or something. That's a really nice way to add little up to your prints. Now your turn. Just walk through the house and look for some objects that could make nice impression in the paint. And have some fun with it. Now let's move on to the next lesson. 9. Prepare for Lift Off: When your paint looks more mat, then you can carefully test in a couple of places. If the paint is really dry, maybe this could dry 2 minutes longer. It needs to be dry because we're going to put another layer on there on everything. I'm going to use unbleached titanium because I really like that color. It's pretty neutral, but it's not in your face white. Instead of one layer to pull off the print, I'm going to do two because I want the unleashed titanium to be the main color. I need to put that on first before I'm going to pull everything off with this pink. You'll see why, because we're going to have a little bit more fun before we pull it off. Now it's a little bit of a search of how much paint you need when you Brayer it on. But let's try this. I'm going to take a Brayer and I'm going to lift and roll. Lift and roll. We need a little bit more, but it is a nice, whoops, maybe this is too much. It is a nice layer when you can still see through it, but you have a nice coverage. Again, we're going to let this dry really, really well. But before that, I'm just going to take a pencil. I'm going to stamp a pattern in there. I want to create rhythm. That's why I make sure that I hold the pencil in slightly different angles. I don't put it in the same places because that is going to create a little bit more tension and excitement. This creates the illusion of an environment without it being very complicated. Just keep it simple until you feel confident that you can take it further. While we let this try, let's move on to the next lesson. 10. Pull That Print: Let's get ready to pull that print. I'm taking some of that pink paint and I'm going to put a nice layer on there. Again, roll and lift. Otherwise you get a messy layer. In hindsight, I could have put a bit more of the acrylic paints on here right now. That would have really helped to pull everything off there at the bottom. You'll see why in a minute. Now, let's put some paper on there. Almost any kind will do. I swear I comb my hair. It's just out of control when it's there. You make sure that every piece of paper is making contact with the jelly plate. That's really important for the print to work because wherever there are air pockets, the paint will not get lifted up when you make your print. Let's take back of a spoon and really burnish it on there. Again, I've waited about 20 minutes or so because I really want it all to be dry. Let's take a peek here in the corner, I can see that it's not completely dry because there are a few specks of the unbleached titanium. And here on the edges as well. I'm going to give it a bit more time because I don't want half of my print to stay on the plate. Let's try this again a few spots here and there isn't the end of the world. But yes, we needed all these layers to be on there. These little stripes are very faint. If you want to do that technique, you need a bit more contrast between the layer underneath and your background color. But on all, I'm very happy with this print, it's just a part of printing. Sometimes you think that something is going to be more pronounced than it is in the end, it is. Okay. That's the beauty of printing. If you're really bummed out, you can always take an ink pad and maybe that below all pencil and you can try what it looks like. It will be a little bit different. But yes, that's also nice texture when something doesn't work out the way you thought it's, it's a nice chance for you to do some problem solving. And because my print is still on my jelly plate, it's easier to get these textures this way because of the squishiness. I hope you enjoyed this project. If you have some experience with the jelly plates and you have some favorite techniques that I haven't covered here, then just add them in there and make it your me. I love it. When you go rogue on me, I would love it. If you would show me your art in the classroom here, I can give you some love. Everybody can see how amazing you are. Now let's move on to the second project, where I'll teach you how to make a transparent print. It's going to be fun. 11. Cleaning Your Plate: Now for the cleaning, I'm taking some baby oil. If you don't have baby oil, then other cosmetic oils will help as well, like my rituals. Body oil for example, just stay away from cooking oils. They will damage your jelly plate. Now that it's on there, it's time to give your jelly plate a proper massage. Just rub the places with the charcoal. After a while they will dissolve. It will take you a couple of minutes. For me, it was 5 minutes. I alternate between using my fingers and my knuckles. Whenever my hand gets tired, you can switch from left to right hand. Just put on some music and yeah, go nuts. And wiping it off with a baby wipe at the end, really did the trick because, look, it's as good as new. Now let's move on to the next project. 12. The Transparent Project: Now let's mix things up for this lesson. I'm going to teach you how to make transparent prints. So that you can put your artwork onto old letters or whatever kind of ephemera you love. Just make sure that it's not too brittle. It does need to have a certain sturdiness because otherwise when you peel it off, it's going to crumble apart on you. And I don't want that for you. I will also include a couple of my own vintage ephemera for you guys in the downloadable PDF that you can find in the class resources that you can have some fun, even when you don't have any at home in this design, I've been a little bit more playful. I have combined this face and this hand, and then just made up a little body to go with that. I kept it whimsical and I excluded the other arm because it's not relevant to me if you want to put in an go nuts. But I like it this way. Now, let's make that transfer. You know what to do, right? Burnish, burnish, burnish. And pull your prints. Now let's move on to the next lesson and add something to this. 13. Freestyle Doodling: Now let's have some fun with homemade stencil. It's very easy. I'm taking some cheap craft paper and scrapbooking puncture. I want the circle to be above her hand. It somewhere around here, I think. Quite high and above her hand. Now let's take some acrylic paints and the smallest Brayer that you have because it's going to make your life easier. I'm just going to put a little bit right here now. I'm going to very carefully because Yeah, it's close to the edge, but let's say that you do, I have a mistake like something like this. Also, don't be too fee, you'll take away some of your critic paints and you don't want that. Let's see. Let's see if I can fix this rather quickly. I have enough paint on here there. It doesn't need to be perfect at all. Okay, so now you have this big stain, and it's a bummer, but you can just take a baby wipe and fix your mistake. Also here, the edge is not very crisp, but I personally like it. I like little imperfections like this, I'm going to leave it. But you can also really fine tune the edges if you want to. If it took way too much, just get rid of it all and go again. I would like to doodle a little bit. Nothing too complicated. I'm taking a bamboo pan, but you can take anything as long as it's not too sharp because, Yeah, it's going to damage your jelly plate. And I'm just going to make some swirls, something like this. I can do a little dot right here or maybe three of them. Let's add a bit more with a small paint brush just so that we have more interest. I'm just going to keep repeating this, okay? It doesn't need to be perfect because the need for perfection can hold us back. But I do dislike this one can really hold us back with creating art. I should be a little bit more though, because otherwise you're going to have a pink in on your print. Don't force yourself to make perfect circles or very neat pattern where everything is the same. This is fine. And let's give her an ankle bracelet on this foot. You just want to put that color in a couple of places and it will look so much better. Maybe this one is dripping or something. The way you can make a droplet very easily is to first start with light pressure and then light pressure and brush down. Yes. Yeah, something like this. Now you guessed it. We're going to let this dry and then I'll show you how to take your 14. A Layer of Matte Medium: Now for the print to be transparent, you'll need some gel met medium. Just put some on there. You don't need that much. So let's see how this will go, maybe a little bit here. Let's see. Yeah, we can use more because you'll need a thin layer, but everything needs to be covered while this is still wet. We're going to take our paper. Let's see, I think I will turn this over so that I have this line underneath something like this. Again, we're going to make sure that everything makes contact with the jelly plate because the gel met medium takes a little bit longer than acrylic paint to dry. For this, I would wait for about 20 minutes and then check to see if everything comes off. Let's take out our journals or another project and do something else for a while or take a break. Breaks are important, but first, let's move on to the big reveal. 15. The Reveal: Let's take a peek in the corner, and it peels off nicely. So I'm going for it, and there she is. Do you see that faint pink blob next to the red circle? That is why it's very important for you to really clean up that pat if you make a mistake. But if it happened then don't sweat it. You can just leave it in there. Or maybe you want to alter your prints. Maybe with some gold leaf or a little bit of paint or crayons. Look at these moments as an opportunity to learn how to problem solve and take your art to the next level. Maybe you never know until you try. Are you ready to take my hands and go to the last video? Let's go. 16. Go Forth and Tell Your Stories: Congratulations, you made it. I hope you enjoyed the class. I would love it if you would leave a review for me. Not only does it help me with visibility of this class, but it also helps me to learn what you liked about the class or maybe what you missed, what you would like to see next time. Also, I am curious if you would love another Eli Plate class that's focused on creating portraits and it's more painterly. Yeah. I'm wondering if you're up for it. I hope you're filled up with inspiration, but if you're looking for a little bit more, then I have two more classes on skill share. They're both designed to overcome starters anxiety and have some fun with it. Thank you so much for being here and I hope there will be many charcoal transfers in your future. What do you think, puppy? Are we done? Are we done? Epi creating everybody.