WOYWW 200

Hi folks, Here is my desk as it was this afternoon around 4.00. The sun was shining and my window was wide open. I had an hour or so to 'play' so I decided to finally try out my new gelli plate which arrived two weeks ago and was still unopened. I started off by watching a few youtube videos about it, because although I had seen most of them before, I thought I could do with a refresher course!

Then I assembled everything I might need, including a fresh brew which is right there in the centre of my desk. The gelli plate, still unopened is on a teflon sheet as they recommend, and to the left is a pile of heavy paper ready for the prints. Behind that is a big roll of household paper and my water mister, which is the suggested way of cleaning the plate. I don't have a lot of acrylic paint but I have a some basic sets, mostly bought when Lidls have them on offer, plus four Fresco paints, and large tubes of mixing white, titanium, silver and gold. So I got all of these out along with my pot of Gesso. To the right of them is a pile of texture materials such as bubble wrap, hessian tape, laundry bag net and some lace, and in front of those is a selection of masks. Finally there is a new soft-ball brayer bought for this purpose, and three Princeton catalyst wedges that I bought with the plate. (This was the parcel that came from USA and cost me so much in import taxes!). The wedges are silicone so they are tough and very easy to clean, and they have a variety of edges for drawing lines etc through the paint.

I had a very messy but fun hour or two experimenting with these. The gesso was a bit too thick though this meant that the brayer left a nice texture on the plate, and the Fresco paint was almost too thin, and started to shrink leaving holes if I waited too long to print it, and it also dried too fast. So in the end, the cheap little tubes of paint were the most satisfactory with the mixer white when I wanted to make pastel shades.  And the silver and gold were lovely when used over other colours.

After the clock change it stays light until 9.00 now and I hadn't realised how long I had been playing, so when my dear hubby came looking for his tea, I did a very quick clearing up session and forgot to take a photo of the the now very messy desk. But as I printed each sheet I used magnets to attach it to my filing cupboard door to dry, and I did take a photo of these, so here are my first attempts. This was purely experimenting to see what worked and what didn't, but there are one or two pieces that I may be able to use on something. I am sure you can see what I used for most of them. The random dots are a stencil I cut from a thin sheet of  plastic using my silhouette cameo, and I am quite pleased with it.

It is only a few minutes off midnight here so I shall publish this now, and in the morning I will link it to Julia's blog, Stamping Ground where we are celebrating a milestone in this weekly snoop around the craft desks of the world. Do feel free to follow me there and see what we have all been getting up to.