Does anyone deserve to have as much fun as I am having at the moment? Playing with my new stencils and masks, and my gel press, are giving me soooo much pleasure!
Spraying inks and making a glorious mess
I began by testing out my new Oriental script block stencils that I wrote about in the previous post.
I am using acetate sheets to store some of my masks in the ring binder. I have a box of A4 acetate sheets that I bought years ago for overhead projector use, and each one is separated by a thin sheet of slightly shiny off-white paper. Rather than throwing these away, I thought I would use them to experiment with, and the results were better than I expected. I wasn’t prepared to use expensive paper during these initial experiments – no great loss if the stencils and masks failed to live up to expectations!
I also have quite a bit of Amazon brown packaging paper that I save every time I get a delivery. This is great for playing with – free, and it has quite a nice thickness and texture.
Another plentiful free resource that I have is a large roll of newsprint. This is not printed with the news, but it is the paper they use for that purpose. During a house move in 1999 the removal men left this with me to pack my china, and when the move was accomplished, they failed to collect it – when I phoned them about it they said to keep it. I’ve used it in the past mostly for drafting sewing patterns on. It’s difficult to handle as it’s extremely large and heavy, and it doesn’t tear well across the roll. I recently bought a very long metal ruler and it tears like a charm along this! I can see myself using this paper a lot more from now on. It’s pretty good for this sort of work, and I am sure it will print well on the gel press, too.
Here are my first efforts with the Oriental Script block stencil. The ones on the left are sprayed through the stencil, and the ones on the right are the blot-off sheets of the overspray on the stencil. The top two are on the acetate carrier sheets, and the bottom ones are on the newsprint.
The newsprint ones are definitely better. The ink I used was Tim Holtz Distress Spray Stain in Black Soot.
The next ones are using one of my stacked journaling block masks.
They were done on packaging paper on the left, and newsprint on the right, and blotted off on the same respective papers. The reason the overspray print on the bottom right is at a jaunty angle is that I dropped the stencil before I got the chance to line it up!
My next test was to try using some hand-made paper. Froyle recently got some gorgeous paper from a local craftsman in New Zealand, making paper from their native flax, and she was singing the praises of this wonderful stuff. She said it took the sprays really well because it was so absorbent – I thought that would make the ink spread, and was very surprised at the results she was getting. I have some sheets of hand-made paper that I was given by a friend, left over from making her wedding invitations, and various other sources, so I thought I’d give it a try.
I have to say I got the best results of all on this paper. I was doing a happy dance around my studio when I pulled off the first one! I have simply got to get hold of some more hand-made paper.
Here is another one I did with red ink – this time Tim Holtz Distress Spray Stain in Fired Brick. I blotted off the stencil onto some packaging paper.
Thinking absorbency, and very small supplies of hand-made paper, I got out a long strip of unbleached calico from my stash. After ironing it and cutting off a few pieces, I gave it a try. It worked!
I then moved on to experimenting with my individual Oriental script masks.
I laid them down on newsprint and sprayed them. I lifted them off carefully and blotted them off onto an acetate carrier sheet. This experiment was an utter failure! I may be able to use the overspray print as mark making. I think these masks will work a lot better on the gel press. You don’t know till you try these things!
Here are various overspray sheets that I created during the afternoon. They are on packaging paper, newsprint and acetate carrier sheets, and the one at bottom right is on white tissue, which I thought might work as it’s so good for ghost prints on the gel plate, but all that happened was that I got a solid square of red! I shall be using all these sheets, though – I can add more sprays, or experiment with them on the gel press.
Second generation overspray sheets. Again, definitely usable and they won’t find their way to the bin!
I also experimented with a bit of mark making this afternoon. The first photo shows various spatters and some brush strokes with the silicone pastry brush (another Froyle trick – thanks, Froyle!) – the one at top left has white and gold spatters on it but I’m afraid they don’t show up too well. The one at bottom left, on packaging paper, is quite subtle, as the ink was almost gone on the pastry brush. There’s gold on that one too.
My other mark-making attempts, all with black acrylic on newsprint and packaging paper, each one shown with the tool I used to create them – paintbrush first, then a plastic lid, then a stiff spiral brush and finally the pastry brush.
I am going to be able to use all these papers, I am sure. It’s all too easy to chuck the seeming failures in the bin but most things are rescuable! Remember the motto of the mixed media artist: “In mixed media there are no mistakes, just more layers.”
My hands at the end of today’s session.
Off to do some mundane stuff now, like getting a meal on. Oh well, such things do have to get done, I suppose.
