Who Needs A Gelli Plate: Paint and Pull

 

You can print with plexiglass, glass pane, with heavier butcher paper, or with plastic page protectors.  Let your imagination scroll and you will find all sorts of things that you can use to print with.

Simply daub some paint dots and marks with straight acrylic (do not use too many colors.)

Lay your substrate on to the painted sheet/glass/etc.  Then, using a brayer or some kind of roller to roll on top of a sheet of substrate ( I use sketch paper, deli paper, watercolor paper, mixed media paper and watercolor paper.)

Paint and pull sheets of substrate until no print is made.

Add more paint, or spray with water, do another pull or two.

Then, not wiping off the surface of your palette, add more dots and marks of different colors.

Paint and pull.  Paint and pull until no more print.

Try laying down a stencil of some kind and put substrate over top and roll your brayer over it.

The flip the stencil over so the pain side is up and roll another print.

You could build on color by using up paint with pulls and then adding a second, third or forth color and do as many pulls as you can.  You could do layer after layer of this technique as long as you let it dry in between further paint and pulls.

Using the paint that showed up, try and see if you can begin to develop a painting.

 

I like to seal my drawing on the different papers because I do not want the charcoal to smear the wrong way.  I use clear gesso.

Painting #1 -  The Visitors

Up in traditional lands of First Nations’ people that I lived and worked with, often there were sightings of “the visitors”.  My two younger daughters had an experience with “two older ladies dressed in old ways”.  It was common to hear the drumming where there were no drummers, see flashes of color of dancers.  Receive gifts from the “little people”.  This is an abstract done in pastel pencils on deli paper.

Painting #2 – Listening to Birds

I love doing Karen Campbell’s upswept hair on my whimsical portraits.  This page is done on sketch paper.  It is all in acrylic with the birds collaged onto her hair.  I used a charcoal pencil to pull the birds from the hair and give definition to her face.  I always worry about my portrait having “helmet hair”, that come from not creating shadows around the face and in the shadowy areas cause by the face.  I could have run into that problem with the birds just stuck in the hair, not setting in, with the shadow around them. 

Painting #3 – Dream

This is done on deli paper.  Her face looks a bit mottled because the beginning paint splotches are showing through.  But, somehow, it gives her character. 

Painting #4 – Fantasy Birds

This was a stretch, again, on deli paper.  Blobs and shapes and lines.  I am sure there is a story in there but it has not revealed itself to me.

 This is a great activity to do to get past a blank page.  If you find yourself stuck, simply try this.  It is exciting to see what you can get from it.

©Carol Desjarlais 6.19.21