100 Days Project -11/100

I haven't done any screen printing for ages so today I pulled out some screens and made a simple print with a paper stencil. Of course you can't just make one! These prints below are over some Gelli® mono-prints I had hanging around.

Today I decided to sketch my pen pot without taking my pen off the paper.

Block Printed Pebbles

Today I've been continuing with design development for my exhibition pieces. Today I was working on my cairn image. What shape should it be? Angular or rounded? Pebbles evenly distributed or not? Perhaps it's even falling down?

I made a simple print block using styrofoam, the type of thing you often get from meat trays. I drew the lines into it with a biro and then cut the pebbles out. First I tried using the block as a rubbing plate onto paper and fabric. I like how the "noise" marks look like movement lines where the carins are about to tumble down!

I then used acrylics and block inks rolled over the plate to make tons of pebble prints. Some were printed in a cairn shape whilst others I've cut out to be assembled later. My print blocks looked really pretty at one stage so I photographed and scanned them to my computer and then printed out the image for my pebble collection.

I tried them out on some of my background landscapes to see how they looked.

I also used collage to try out some ideas for some angular stylised cairns based on a diamond shape. A strip of double sided tape along the centre of my paper made it really quick to build up some designs.

I've still got just a few more design experiments to do before I start the fabric creations.

Collage Compositions

I'm working on a textile piece at the moment where composition is the most important element. Not always my strong point! To get some ideas I used my scrapbook paper stash to make these small collages for inspiration. Collage is great when you are doing compositions because you can keep rearranging everything before you commit to a design. I got some great inspiration from the work of Rex Ray who made amazing collages from magazine pages. You can see some of his images and lots of other great patterns that I have collected for inspiration on my "Patterns" Pinterest board. I've got nearly 6,000 pins on 48 boards so if patterns aren't your thing I'm sure you can find something that is!

Gelli - Inspired by Mothers Challenge

Here is my piece for the May Gelli Arts challenge. You can enter the challenge on the Gelli Arts Facebook page. I used stencils, bubble wrap, embossed card, foam shapes and cotton tips to make the patterns in the prints. I then drew the pregnant mum and cut her out giving me a positive and a negative image - 2 designs for the price of one! I layered up the cutouts, some plain paper and more Gelli prints to give a drop shadow effect. A little graphite pencil defines her outline. "Mother" was stamped onto one side with rubber stamps.