Meanwhile Back at the Gelli Plate

These photos are actually from more than a month ago, related to the class I took with Martha Wolfe. These were one of the mini class lessons where we pressed leaves and shapes down into heated, moldable foam rectangles called Magic Stamps. You can get very fine details, such as leaf veins, and if you get tired of the stamp you can reheat it and start over. The shapes on the right are a carved Indian leaf stamp and a series of plastic paperclips.  Somewhere I have some of this stuff stored and ready for play, I just have to find it. It would be cool to do a bunch of ginkgo leaves, flat juniper leaves, grape leaves, decorative buttons.

Wow, only a month and I've forgotten the details on how I did this! I can't remember is this the print after the leaf has been painted and left on the Gelli plate, or has the leaf already been removed? Or one of each?

Here a dark paint, with pattern, was rolled onto the Gelli plate and actual leaves were used as masks. What shows below is a rather wild experimental painting from some months ago that never seemed to look right. It still doesn't, but I'm thinking it might with some thick threads couched around them.

A purple painted Gelli plate, some leaf masks and a fabric I made earlier with a painted round needlepoint canvases and spray paints.

Leaf masks with paste paper shapes showing through. Again, needs more of something,

One of my favorites, a blue-orange hexagon patterned fabric underneath, greenish paint on the Gelli plate and a branch of thin eucalyptus leaves a mask.

Some more eucalyptus leaf masks. I have a new set of leaves, blown off a tree in the wind, but I'd better use them by tomorrow or they will start drying and curling.

Too busy of a background, will need a lot of further improvements. Though again, I'm wondering how much it would hold together if I just outlined the leaves with cord.

Too murky.

The original background was blue and yellow paint on deep red fabric. It was pretty weird looking, but so is this. Though it does remind me of the shadows you can get on glass tables that reflect shadows above them but letting you see through to a lower level.

Plain leaves, to be used elsewhere. It would be interesting to reinforce them and cut them out just as they are. Or stamp on canvas and cut out (my current obsession).

I really need to go back over my notes and recreate these things, as taking the class was a means of gaining more "go to" techniques that I use without thinking.....since the details of the class are threatening to fade, I would not be going to these things and using them to solve current design issues, but setting them aside for later.

I have one more project to finish for the class I have been taking on designing, and then I will be combining working on 12 x 12 items for my local group and learning bead embellishment techniques.