Time to get messy! I imagine that is my favorite exercise, making backgrounds on the gel plate. As alluded to earlier, I do not know when to cease, utilizing a number of color combos. Firstly I laid a stencil onto the ‘clear’ gel plate (mine is now stained fairly yellow, however nonetheless works completely) and used alcohol makers by the stencil. The advantage of this method is that the marks on the print can be fairly outlined, and the markers dry rapidly. I adopted the identical course of for every stencil.
Hey presto and you’ve got your print.
Lay the stencil onto a clear gel plate once more, after which gently enable drops of ink into the areas. The ink will get in all places, together with below the stencil. I used numerous color mixes, making an attempt to decide on colors that if blended, would make harmonious purples and oranges, fairly than mud. As you’ll be able to see from the images beneath it appears a sizzling mess at this stage!!
Hold the stencil in place till the inks begin to dry, it should not take lengthy, however will rely on how a lot ink you utilize. When you raise the stencil too quickly, the inks will transfer and merge collectively and you’ll lose the definition of the stencil. Which might truly nonetheless make an excellent print, however not essentially what you had meant! After you have eliminated the stencil, enable the ink that crept below it, to dry utterly, earlier than making use of a advantageous layer of acrylic paint with the brayer, to raise the print in the identical method as I did when utilizing the markers.
One can find that there’s nonetheless numerous ink dried on the stencil, this can be utilized to make second, third and fourth prints which can be extra refined. To do that, I apply a skinny layer of mixing answer (or you should utilize a pale shade of ink in a contrasting color) to the gel plate, spreading it pretty evenly with a brayer, then lay the ‘soiled’ stencil onto the plate. The mixing answer reactivates the dried ink. That is the place it will get actually enjoyable, since with every print, you’re going to get a reverse picture, however you actually have no idea what the print will end up like. Some you’ll actually love, and others possibly not a lot!
In order you’ll be able to see, I generated a variety of prints, after a really satisfying messy session. You’ll be able to see how the prints get paler too. The extra outlined prints had been made utilizing the alcohol markers.
As you may think with all these prints, I’ve loads left over for different initiatives, however first I needed to resolve which I used to be going to make use of for the concertina e book. What would you select?
Subsequent step was to make the concertina e book itself. I lower an A4 piece of kraft card lengthways, then scored each items at roughly 7.5cm intervals to make folds. This left a small overlap to attach the 2 ends collectively. I then glued this to a canopy which I made by chopping one other piece of kraft card, making certain it was barely bigger: approx 18cm x 12cm, making two folds, for the backbone of the e book. I glued the lengthy concertina into the duvet, this offers me 7 pages to embellish.
