Gelli plate – Art By Peleegirl

Back in the saddle again

Well, it’s been a little while since I’ve actually created – and I didn’t realize until I picked up the paintbrush again this week the impact it has. I’ve been feeling drained and uninspired for the last few weeks – work has been challenging and I’ve been travelling a lot and art has been put on the back burner.

I hit my studio last Sunday and tackled a painting I’ve been wanted to do for a while. My mermaid art journal page has been begging to become a painting to hang on my wall and she finally found her way to the canvas. The skin was really challenging on this piece, put I stuck to my guns and pulled out some unexpected materials and I was extremely happy with the final result. Here is the painting from its spray ink start to finish.

I also played in my art journal this week – it was all about texture and colour. I had no idea what direction I was going to go this week. I just decided to use up some scraps, play with a new stencil and use some of my favourite colours. I was a great way to get back into the groove and start to feel inspired again.

Art Journal Page – Big Ideas (or fun with Gelli prints)

I love Sunday nights – have I said that before? It’s my time to be creative for no reason other reason than the sake of being creative and trying to work out some of the big ideas that have been rattling around in my brain throughout the week. I get to play – try new ideas or technique and not worry about whether or not it would be something that I can market or sell.

I set out with #Strombo on the radio, this week featured the first 50 songs of the Strombo Hundo and started to play with my Gelli plate. I’d picked up the medium sized plate about a month before and this was the first chance I had to play with it. I used a variety of Golden paints (including the high flow and open acrylics) and all kinds of fun stuff to make texture and pattern on the plate. I ended up with 6 prints in addition to the ones I used for the plate – I had to cut it off, so much fun, but I wouldn’t have completed a journal page if I’d kept it up.

The yellow and purples print (aptly described by a friend as a crazy octopus) was the basis for the page and I used the colours on the page as my leaping off point. I used the other print photo as collage elements on the page – the colours worked well together and in the end the octopus comment led me to an ocean theme and then came the small mermaid. I was feeling little dwarfed by all my thoughts and ideas of late – wonder how I’d be able to get them all out – and the colourful chaotic mess is the result. I’m very energized with this page and feeling a little more focused because of it.

Gelli Print tags

To alleviate some of the guilt of not making many Christmas presents, I decided to make tags, using my gelli plate. The results were great and I will be making more in the future.