Reveal your True Self- Wendy's travelling art journal

I have spoken before about how I love to be in a journal swap,

 I love having the journals travelling around between us all, and I love having them arrive to be mine for a short while. It is like having an intimate gallery arrive right into your home, that you can visit over and over while it is here, and can share with your friends and visitors. 

And then it is gone- 

you have done your piece and added your energy and sent it on its way and then you are eagerly awaiting the next one and contemplating the theme.

This journal belongs to Wendy Pepyart 

who is a very talented and creative member of this round of 

The Australian Art Journal Swap

Wendy's gorgeous art journal is a repurposed childrens story book and her title is 'Reveal Your True Self'

Well, asking me, Who my true self is?, 

just about turned me inside out, lol- I do love how these journals challenge us and as Wendy is a very intuitive artist I just got out some supplies and started to play and let my own intuition guide me.

I pulled out some colours that were calling to me on the day and arranged them into a rainbow and then I started to get some ideas.

My thinking went along the lines rainbow, 

colours, 

colour groups,

 different aspects of me are all my true self

- paper dolls!

 I chose six colour themes and six aspects of me,
I pulled out the gelli plate, a brayer, some stencils and some watercolour paper and just played.

Once I had created my 6 dolls, I then played with stamps building up their mixed media texture and finally I journaled on them about who this aspect of me really is.  

Asha's art workshop

I have a special little friend,

 I have known her since she was a baby,

 in fact I could of quite happily brought her home and kept her,

 I still could. 

Her name is Asha 

and she wanted to do some art with me,
she wanted to do printmaking and book making,

and she wanted to share it with her friends, 

so she gathered a group 

and we enjoyed a weekend of printmaking and book making 

and they all worked really hard 

and went home with something beautiful  and unique,

something they made with their own hands.

I have youth art classes running at the moment doing printmaking, stamp making and bookmaking. We make art and have fun at the Grafton Art Club on Wednesday afternoons. I still have a couple of places available, contact me at rivergirlart@bigpond.com if you would like more information.

Cleaning Up after a big Gelli Plate session

Have you joined in with the gelli plate printing fun?
I have  been loving mine so much I have bought a whole class set and am now teaching with them.

That also means a class set of tools to use for printmaking and that means piles pf painty equipment to clean regularly, so I have been getting plenty of practice.

I have a shallow plastic box that I collect all the paint covered brayers and stencils and punchinella and everything else we use in and transport it home. When I get home I fill it with water till it covers everything and then I leave it to soak over night.

The next day I bring everything to the sink and use an assortment of tools to clean things up. My fingers and running water can remove quite a lot after a good soak

An old tooth brush is soft and perfect for getting a lot more paint removed, especially from little holes.

Both sides always need cleaning after youth art classes, at home I  only need to clean very rarely as I manage to get most of the paint onto my work.

I also use an old glass chopping board on an angle under the tap as a flat surface to gently scrub the stencils on, it also means I don't need to bend over the sink quite so much.

Stubborn bits can be gently scrubbed with a scoring pad.

A final rinse, and its ready for the nest class/

I dry them on old nappies from when my boys were babies.

Now the gelli plates themselves, I don't soak them overnight.

They go into the sick with some dish washing liquid and warm water for a few minutes soaking.

Most of the paint comes off with gentle rubbing with my fingers but a make up sponge is very gentle and assists with any stubborn paint.

I then rinse them in clean cool water and they dry on the nappies as well. Every few weeks I follow these steps with a gentle wipe with baby oil to remove the staining in the gelli plates, this is not really needed though as the staining does not affect the gelli plates usage at all.

Then its back into my printmaking box and I am ready to go again.

How do you clean your printmaking equiptment?

My Waste Paint Art Journal

Layers, lovely layers of colour and pattern, I love them.

While I am playing with my gelli plate I keep a student .visual diary beside my plate, I am using a canson A4.  I have it opened up and use it to clean my tools as I use them on the gelli plate. I also clean my stencils and stamps in this journal and I end up with some really gorgeous prints and so inspiring, I just want to play in this journal all the time now..

All that excess green I rolled of the brayer formed a lovely background for cleaning off the dwarf nandina leaves the day we did botanical printing.

Here I was cleaning off some tools 

I used to stamp into my plate,

they make great starting points for journal pages.

This page has been used for cleaning off the brayer and various stamping tools and then I have cleaned some of my home made stamps off on top of these pages, the white is gesso I was stamping onto a different piece of work.

And this page you might recognise if you are a regular river girl art reader.

It looked like this when I took it out in my car the other day 

and it turned into this.

I am loving this journal so full of inspiration, colour and texture and just ready for me to start playing in it at any time. I still have a few pages blank in the back and some have notes scrawled onto them that may become another layer in a journal page when I get to them or may just stay like that to remind of the day they were written.

Botanic Prints with the Gelli Plate

We have had a mild winter and I was noticing lots of luscious weeds growing with lovely veining so I did as any paint splattered girl would do, I picked some and took them inside to play with. The sample above is a ruby dock weed and I just adore how it came out. 

Next I decided we would play with botanic printing in my class at the Grafton Art Club 

and we produced some really beautiful delicate prints using the leaves as stamps

I also ended up with some stunning embellishments like this one.

As I was selecting a colour to paint my house at the same time I ended up with a heap of little paint sample cards, just perfect for printing onto.

We experimented with leaves and these are poinciana seed pods, I have plans for some sturdy flowers and grass seed heads though as they come into season.

Gelli Plate

Like everyone in the mixed media world I too have succumbed to the gelli plate madness, oh how did we live without them? 

I have done so many delicious prints I will just share a few.

Gelli printing is so fun and I love the pages I am creating. 

I will be sharing some of the things I do with my gelli prints as well.