My brand-new 6" x 6" mask Chandelier s971 and its companion, 6" x 6" Diatom s972, volunteered for today's project -- a project fairly new for me. I'm someone who plunges into things; I'm not a planner. (I married a planner so I wouldn't have to do this myself!)
I've surprised myself with the discovery that I actually enjoy this kind of hands-on planning.
An artist's planning journal can be anything the individual artist wants. For myself, it's worked best that I've start by buying good-quality mixed-media tablets of two sizes and two brands*. That's commitment!
My first step was to use a gluestick for adding two squares of black paper on opposing pages of a new mixed-media tablet.
I literally had to dust off the clamshell that holds my gel plate to take the next step -- gasp! -- trying something else that I'd never before attempted.... Using Golden Paints' High Flow Acrylics instead of liquid acrylics or open acrylic paints as I'd done in the distant past.
Above: In the upper left lies a stack of wet-strength (artist-grade) tissue papers. Also available elsewhere, from other tissue-making companies, these papers appear mostly white, with only a faint translucence, until they're glued to a dark background. Once they're saturated with any gluing medium, they become more translucent. Here I've used a gluestick. Heavy body matte medium gel will also work. I don't recommend using regular-strength matte medium (gel or liquid), or regular-strength gloss medium (gel or liquid) because these two media make the tissue difficult to work with. (Note: This is NOT the same tissue paper as what's used in giftwrapping.)
To the right of these tissues above, my 6" x 6" wide soft-rubber brayer. To the right of that, a squirt-bottle of Golden High Flow Acrylic Titanium White. (The yellow stylus is my tool for freeing the spray nozzle of dried paint that could impede the flow of fresh paint from the bottle.) Under the paint bottle lies a stack of masks and stencils ready for some future project; the one on top is 9" x 12" Mimosa L141.
Below: High Flow dots the surface of the gel plate....
In future, I plan to leave the dots of High Flow acrylic paint pretty much as they're shown above. (To see what will happen with the prints!)
But for today, the brayer has spread an even layer of paint across the entire surface of the gel plate; after that, my two just-released masked have been set down onto that wet surface.
The photo above -- especially in the upper left corner -- shows the bubble-like dots in the surface of the high flow acrylic paint. By the end of this project I'd discovered that I love this bubble-like look in a finished print because I love texture, be it real or (in this case) visually implied.
Above: A sheet of wet-strength art tissue has been placed atop the two masks and, with my hands, I've pressed every area of the tissue flat, to pick up the designs and as much paint as possible. Below: A close-up of one area --
Next, I pulled off the wet-strength tissue, set it aside, and lifted off the masks.
Then I pressed a fresh sheet of tissue to the still-wet surface of the gel plate.
When I pulled off this second sheet, I had the imprint that I wanted to use in today's art journal project. (This is the "ghost print" and it has more clarity than the first pull. The first pull had picked up excess paint that'd resulted in a somewhat blurred imprint.)
Above: Having cut the dried "ghost print" into manageable-sized pieces, I've begun to "audition" imprints against the background of the black squares on the pages of the art journal. Auditioning guided me along a path of exploration. I tried a variety of potential cut-aways and potential combinations of the cut-aways.
 |
| Above: Left: a cut-away from the ghost print of Diatom s972. Upper right: a cut-away made from the ghost print of Chandelier s971. |
Above: This is one of the combinations of cut-apart imprints that made the final cut. The red paper has come from a different printing project.
Below: Another combination.....
 |
Above: Lower left: a cut-away from the ghost print of Diatom s972. Upper third: a cut-away made from the ghost print of Chandelier s971.
|
The photo above includes another snippet from a different art project. (That project combined red, black and white acrylic paints and, in a last step, marks made with a white-ink Posca pen.)
Above: A close-up detail of the ghost print cut-away of Diatom s972. In this photo, as well as the one below, the visually implied texture of "bubbles" reminds me of lace. To my eye, this "spotty" kind of imprint is more interesting than a plain one would be, especially when the print's been made on white wet-strength (artist-grade) tissue that has become faintly translucent now that it's glued to a black background.
Today's next 2 photos show token finishing touches in this simple experiment in a new art journal. Simple tho this project has been, I hope it generates ideas for your own future art explorations!
| Above left: snippet of ghost print of 6" x 6" mask Diatom s972. Upper right: snippet of ghost print of 6" x 6" mask Chandelier s971 . |
 |
Above: Upper left: a cut-away from the ghost print of Diatom s972. Right: a cut-away made from the ghost print of Chandelier s971.
|
Tomorrow's post will feature an old stencil- or mask-printing tool that still works beautifully ....
| Above upper left: black-and-white imprint of 6" x 6" mask Chandelier s971. Lower right: black-and-white imprint of 6" x 6" mask Diatom s972. |
More posts using these 2 new masks will follow! To scroll thru the pages of my masks and stencils at StencilGirlProducts.com, please start here.
*The two mixed-media tablets that I chose are here and here. Both are good quality.
