Monday, October 3, 2011

Onward with the ugly fabric challenge

Today, I am going to use my gelli printing plate to add some images to my ugly fabric.  As I said before, this thing is the greatest thing since sliced bread if you want to do easy easy printing.  You can make your own, but I am lazy and I would rather not.

So, I bought this one.  The website is http://www.gelliarts.com/.  It has tons of information about this new product.  I thought it was a bit pricey, but it is well worth it.  If I don't ruin it.  I have stained mine and that annoys me, but I can turn it over and use the other side.  It comes with some instructions, which are important if you want it to last.  It wasn't actually supposed to stain if you used acrylic paints, but somehow I did manage.  Now mine is an icky blue.  But it should be usable even on that side.

Here is a picture of my messy printing plate.

Here is a scan of the paper inside the packaging when you purchase one.
I did find that you need to use "open acrylics" (I use Golden Open Acrylics) OR you need to use some "open medium" with your acrylics.  Otherwise, the acrylic paint just dries way too fast on the plate.  And the purpose is to get the paint spread on the plate, impress some found objects or lace, bubble wrap or whatever into the paint, then put your fabric on top and brayer so that the image will be printed right onto your fabric.  Or paper, or whatever you are wanting to get an image onto.

I haven't tried DynaFlow or other thin fabric paints.  Since they are thinner, they most likely would spread better and you wouldn't have to use the medium.  But, for now, I just had my mind made up to use acrylic paints.

First, I mixed the Golden Open Medium with some Carbon Black acrylic in a tube.  Then I poured it over the gel plate and brayered the paint to make a smooth surface.

Looks pretty icky.  I got a ton of glare from the window in my art room.  But I think you can get the idea.

Next, I chose some (just a very few) objects to impress into the black paint.  I used a piece of plastic canvas, one of those swirly things on a stick from years ago that we used with Radiant Pearls.  Anybody remember those greasy paints?  Loved them. 

Then I laid my fabric face down on the gel plate and just tapped it in areas to transfer the paint to the fabric.


Pulled the fabric off the plate and dried it a bit with a heat gun and then ironed it.  Right now it looks like it has a bit much paint on it, but I will change that.....soon.

2 comments:

whyducks said...

Oh Lovely!

knc said...

well mine is on the way, hope to have it next week. I did get the larger one and the smaller one. This looks like so much fun and the ideas are endless.