playing with my gelli plate

I always have great plans at half term - catching up on schoolwork, catching up on housework, planning out new ideas for the classroom, decorating in the house, clearing out, gardening (getting those spring bulbs in)....

In reality I actually just needed a really good rest and after sleeping a lot and catching up with friends I made myself play with my paints and gelli plate on Friday morning - play is rest too, and is VeRy good for you!

The colours this autumn have been amazing.  I've done a lot of driving through the Cheshire countryside this week, being Mum's taxi for my son who was doing some work experience with a farrier - the drive has been a real treat to just soak in the amazing colours of the leaves.

So I took the leaves and autumn colours for inspiration as I played.

I brayered Dina Wakley's acrylic paints onto the gelli plate, pressed down some stencils then laid down a leaf before taking the print.  These just shout out for some zen doodling inside the leaf shape!

Removing the leaf and taking a second print is actually my favourite result though :)

I had a bit of play with other colourways too.  I love black and white backgrounds with added colour so look forward to adapting this piece.  The paints used are  'night' combined with 'umber'.

Some of the leaves are still green 

which makes a nice combo with oranges, yellows and browns.

I then chose to play with my little 3" x 5" gelli plate, exploring the use of dark blue

trying out new colourways such as yellow ochre and grey

and layering colours into my little journal, ready for some imagery

By the end of all this playing, I had a fantastic sheet of paper created by cleaning off my brayer in addition to the many sheets of gelli printed papers :)

Sometimes I find it easy to play but I really had to work at it this time.  It was worth it though :)

Documented Life Project - October and the missing months

 My poor planner has quite a few missing journaled pages over the last few months.  I love a challenge but what with the busyness of teaching in school full time, and other demands on my time I haven't kept up with DLP until now.  Sometimes the challenge is too big!

 The October challenges, though, aren't too far from my comfort zone and so have been within reach in my limited time.  The theme for October is 'translucent papers'.

The leaves this autumn are just spectacular and I wanted to reflect that in my planner.  I used some newly purchased Paper Artsy Chalk Acrylics, my Gelli plate and some deli paper (the challenge for Oct 3rd).  The journaling around the leaf is my attempt at describing the wonderful colours of the season.

October 10th's challenge was to use tissue paper.  I had some in my drawer from a Clinique purchase which had the brand name printed on in deeper white, but this disappeared when I laid it on some paper I'd art journaled on at a Dina Wakely workshop.  I'm really pleased with the letter stencils - I've wanted some like this for many, many years and came across some recently at Fred Aldous.  They are made of waxed card so once they're all painty and inky I'll be able to incorporate the actual stencils in my work too!

This weekend's challenge was to use vellum.  I couldn't find any in my stash so improvised with a large translucent envelope.

Again using my new Paper Artsy Chalk Acrylics I began a page that could be inserted inside the 'envelope page'.

I may still add some more doodling but it's fine for now.  The 'Love with your Heart' stamp is by Visible Image and is another of my recent purchases - I had a lovely time at the Happy Stampers show, Port Sunlight, with friends :)

The fairy seemed quite apt for this time of year.  The October piece at the top of the page has been on my mind to do right from the beginning but it's taken me til now to purchase some suitable stamps!!  These are from Kaisercraft.