I created a few pen and ink postcards for the Postcrossing group. If someone mentions they like handmade cards, I’ll send one, but if they don’t mention it, they’ll get a regular, purchased card. We have a ton to choose from, so they’re always fun to send. The owl went to Portugal and the crow to Germany.
All the others are monotypes from the gel plate, most with a charcoal drawing, and the Morandi-influenced bottles with some pan pastel.
A bunch of 6″x6″ and 8″x10″ monotypes, some with charcoal or pastel drawings. The two landscapes are done with a brayer or palette knife. The animals are charcoal drawings with some fancier backgrounds. And the bottles are inspired by still lifes by Giorgio Morandi.
I started a new monotype sketchbook (8.5″ x 11″) where I sketch with charcoal from the back pages to the front pages, and I create the monotypes from the front pages to the back pages. I wanted to have a system where the sketches aren’t in a wide variety of sketchbooks or on single sheets, but it’s kept together.
I use the Gelli plate to “grab” the charcoal sketch and then usually only apply one coat of acrylic paint before creating the print. I doubt the sketches and the prints will meet in the middle because I sometimes don’t use a sketch, like the birch trees above. That was done with the roller and a paintbrush and inspired by Linda Brown, a gel plate and collage artist Youtuber.
My favorite is the potted begonia, second the birches, and third the old doorway.
I learned a lesson about how to clean and store gel plates, but I didn’t realize I was doing anything wrong until my charcoal prints had nearly stopped transferring to the plate. Instead of a medium to dark transfer, they were barely there and then hardly lifted with paint. One day, I realized that I had totally stopped using mineral oil to clean the plates, and instead I was using almond oil, which seems to do a fine job and doesn’t irritate my skin. I then realized the almond oil was probably drying out the plates, which are made of mineral oil. So, I swapped back and everything has improved.
I keep creating monotypes, mostly charcoal sketches transferred to the gel plate and lifted with acrylic. Some have additional pastel or acrylic “reverse painted” on the plate before the final lift. These look painterly, I think. There’s one very bright red apple that I drew directly on the plate with acrylic markers. It’s not my style, but the medium called for something crisp and bright.
These are 6″x6″ and printed in a Stillman and Birn Nova sketchbook. I mentioned it before, but the paper is beige, and I’ve struggled a bit with keeping the lights light. On a few, I’ve been experimenting with only semi-mixing the paint before applying it to the background with the brayer. I really love the unexpected, mottled look, so much more expressive than the one-color or gradient backgrounds. My favorite is the female red-winged blackbird perching on the branch. I can tell it’s windy out because of the background.