I've been getting ready for a gel plate printing workshop with a valentine theme and am sharing one of my simple ideas with you. This makes fun paper to use in valentines and cards ... or in other collage/mixed media work, too.
And if you're taking my Valentine Collage online class (Sunday, Feb 9), save the scraps from cutting out hearts. This is a great use for them!
Although this idea is so simple that it doesn't really count as a tutorial, it's a fun and easy technique and maybe you haven't tried it yet.
Here's the process:
Use a brayer to spread a layer of acrylic paint on your gel plate and print a solid color background.
Cut out a bunch of hearts and save the negative space (the paper remaining around the hearts). [You can also use the hearts themselves, though, too!]
Now spread a second (contrasting) color of acrylic paint on your gel plate.
Place your "heart scraps" over the paint and use that first background that you printed to print a second color on top of it. Voila!
scraps over paint on gel plate + pull a print EXTRA: When I remove the scraps, if I can still see bits of paint on the gel plate, I let the plate dry for a few minutes and then use a very thin layer of a different color of paint to make a ghost print. (The new paint "reactivates" the dry paint and they both pull up together.) That's the pink print that you see here, the one with the faint blue lines.
And that's it! I hope that if you give this simple technique a try that you share your printed papers (or what you make with them) by tagging me on Instagram so that I can see yours (I'm @jenniferwilkinpenick).
Have fun and happy valentine's day!