29 face 2/16 - 6

These 2 Gelli prints are both made from a total of 29 faces - all of which are faces I cut out from magazines. You can't really see some of the faces anymore, but they are there! In addition to the 2 prints, I also made a time lapse video of the process (I kept track of the number of faces by adding pencil marks to the back of the prints as I was going along.)

#12

#13

#14

... and because I can make up my own rules, #14 is the video of making the above 2 pieces!






I know I'm pretty much not making it by the end of the month at this point, but that's ok! I started late, I still have some things in progress, some closer than others to being done and I've already posted 14 groups of 29 faces! I will keep on going!


2/2016 faces! 5
2/2016 faces! 4
2/2016 faces! 3
2/2016 faces! 2
2/2016 faces! 1

all previous 29 faces

Magazine Graffiti Women

Last year when I first participated in the 29 Faces challenge, I experimented with a different technique for each face and stumbled on the idea of painting on magazine pages. I hadn't played with this idea at all until this past week when I hit a roadblock, unable to get into any art in particular when I decided it was time to do something more "mindless" and decided to paint on some magazine pages.

I lovvvvvvve the eye and nose on this one

 and a couple of short time-lapse process videos of the purple and pink faces. Each one compresses about 45 min to ~1 min:

Although, as before, I kinda view this as cheating, I still think it's a good and interesting technique to use, especially to just experiment with getting the "feel" of painting a properly proportioned face in different positions. Plus, once you slap down the first layer of paint, you're kinda on your own in terms of going forward with shading and fixing your slopped paint slapping. I like the result and I'll probably go to this and maybe even try it out with my own photos at some point....

Oral Expulsion

One of the things that I love about collage is that anything is fair game. Pictures? Random sheets of paper? Candy wrappers? Tickets, scraps, little handouts, bits of left over art projects? They can all be fodder for new ideas, juxtaposed or cut down and manipulated into deformed versions of their former selves. I learned this years ago when I first started making collages and I would just make piles of cut outs and other random things and purposely toss them onto my table. I'd shuffle them around and some days some combinations would appear and I would run with it.... Now that I have too many hobbies to count, I still do this, although things have changed a little. I have a large journal that I've using to clean off painty things... a dirty brayer, a paint smeared stencil & whatever other junk I decided to press onto the Gelli plate. And these painted pages sometimes sit for a while before things click to make the whole. This past weekend I opened one of these pages and got to town. This was the result.

It's funny though because once I looked at it for a while, I realized this was likely at least partially inspired by sources of collage material that I sometimes ignore... because not all collage materials come in the physical sense.. instead some comes from a more mental place and I realized that unconsciously, I was inspired by a recent blog post from a friend about one of her experiences with San Pedro while in Peru and specifically her experiencing her ego as a little rodent......

Gelli Women

My gelli plate has been a little neglected recently... tossed aside for wooden eyeball paintings the last few months and stunted by my perpetual hope for the 12' x 14" one to appear at Dick Blick so I can use a 40% off coupon on it (dreams!) But as I am apt to do and fueled by a couple new stencils, this weekend it was time to bring the gelli plate back out again for some fun! Also, out of curiosity, I decided to do a time lapse video of the process. It's weird to watch it myself for many reasons... The fact that I was only really working on the 8 prints (and a couple more that weren't finished) for about 90 minutes based on the number of photos (I would have guessed a few hours.) Some of the breaks are me just wandering off to do something else including cutting quite a few stencils, letting things dry, sleeping or putting on more music. The fact that I work on so many prints simultaneously and the ways the resulting prints are similar and different.

Ok, too much rambling! Time for some art!

The process.....

...and the results!

Soul Mirrors!!

About a month ago I had a brain explosion (a good thing!) that lead to altering what I previously did with this drawing... the result has been a series of painted eyes on boards with various types of mirrors in place of the pupils...With the idea of the eyes being the windows to one's soul (or whatever way you would like to represent the concept of the eyes giving one more insight into a person & their emotions and creating connection) combined with a mirror (sometimes flat and sometimes giving a more distorted reflection), the result is turning this idea into a more self reflective activity. The colorful eyes draw one in and then act as a prompt combined with the mirror that urges one to carry out this connection and activity with themselves as well.

SO MUCH LOVE and ENJOYMENT in creating these!! Plus, they just look cool.

Smallest is 8x8 and largest is 12 x 12 inches. All acrylic on wood. The bottom 2 also include glow in the dark accents.

Liney

29 face, the fourth

Woo! With these 4, I'm officially over halfway through the 29 faces!

12 - blind contour drawing (this was actually the second... the first is kinda visible on the other side), pencil on printer paper

13- and a non-blind non-single line contour drawing of the same subject..... amazing what looking at the paper does and does not change! Same pencil on printer paper

14- face only version of Exquisite corpse that my boyfriend and I worked on on the same printer paper with pencil

15- inkblotish/fold paper in half painting technique. I used a paintbrush and sloped the paint on. I went over some areas a couple of times, but only painting on the left side and then folding to fill in on the right. Acrylic paint on printer paper

infinite rectangles

..ok, not infinite, but I think it took me about a week to finish the first Gelli print. I'd add a layer and realize that nope, it wasn't done yet. I'm not sure how many layers of rectangles I added before I finally knew it was done, but it was worthwhile. I'm really happy with the end result. The second was an attempt at the same technique as the first, but it didn't quite work, so I took it in a different direction.....

Gelli circles and rectangles

my Gelli is...

See more Gelli prints!

To a Gelli New Year!

I just got home from vacation last night & it was sad because during my trip, I kept thinking about making Gelli prints and my stash of print making materials all over my kitchen counter and table. I gave one of the plates to my sister for Christmas and got a little bit of my Gelli-printing out when I demoed some techniques for her and my mom, but still, I'm looking forward to making some now that I'm home. These are all prints I made before leaving on my trip.....

See other people's Gelli prints!

Gelli-fied

Last weekend while browsing around online, I read a mention of the "Gelli Plate" - a mineral oil based "gelatin" plate for monopriting. My first reaction was "Monoprint? Why would I want a monoprint?" After a bit more research, I started realizing the potential of such a device, especially for a collage-y person as myself. While technically yes, it does produce a single print, there's also the possibility of getting multiple prints from a single plate-inking, which means there's even more possibilities since each print is a little different. Anyway, after getting out of work a bit early on Wednesday, I walked over to Dick Blick in Pasadena to pick one up (and as a bonus, at a bit of a discount from what you can get directly from Gelli!) With the exception of an interruption due to a biking accident, I've been printing up a storm this weekend, only using materials I've had on hand. I really like the potential for using leaves and other nature bits, but that will have to wait for another time.

To get started I read the paper that came with the plate (no need for me to repeat such things here) & put some youtube videos on in the background. I don't own any stencils, but I set out digging through my recycle bin and other random materials I had on hand to play and make some awesome effects and unique prints. Because of all the layers and the metallic paint I used in some of the prints, there's no way the scans will be as interesting as the originals, but they will have to do. All are printed on 8.5" x 11" cardstock. These are a few of my favorites so far.