I made this last night on paper. It's a direct result of the gelli plate play.
When my friend Chris saw it on instagram, she said it reminded her of turtles, so I'm calling "Myrtle the Turtle".
The gelli plate work over the holidays put me back in the play zone. Researching the gelli plate process showed me a lot of approaches to mono printing. I started looking for bigger applications. This eventually led me to Dan Tirels, on YouTube, whose work I really like. I've started making stencils with tape like he does. He is very generous in sharing his process.
This green one is the result of drawing on a piece of 18" x 24" inch multimedia paper, covering it with broad scotch tape, cutting that into a stencil, and mono printing through it onto a second piece of paper. I then worked into the mono print with more paint and mark making. Limiting the palette and using a mother colour probably helped. When I was all done I had to edit the top left quarter a few times to make it work. Personally, I ended up liking that strong vertical up there. It creates an interesting conversation between the extreme left and the rest of the painting, especially because the eye goes to that area of high contrast first. Finally I placed that little green strip underneath it, which really sings and balances the whole composition. So fun how one little mark can do that.
I made new stencils today. I made them from one drawing. I cut it so that I created both a positive design and a negative version of it. Then I taped two papers to the table to use them on. I'm going to poll the house for a mother colour, as I have no particular intention myself, and then I'm going to try two at once. Stay tuned.