Yesterday, Joe and I dropped by my old crafting friends, the grandchildren, to drop off the last Sunday of the month children's newspaper from the NYTimes. I took over several white masks that I thought they might like to paint. I had painted one that made me look like The Joker. I used textile paints from my quilting days and a permanent marker and felt very incompetent. Brush too wet, so paint ran. Eager to see what the grands do! It was fun to try. I found these Hanes 3 ply cotton slightly stretchables at Walgreens when we went to get our senior flu shots. I hope it was not too early in the season, but our drugstore in Cambridge had already run out of the senior shots. While up in the studio, I spotted a Gelli plate that I bought years ago to do some monoprints. After watching a Harvard webinar I got out some acrylics, a soft brayer, baren and papers. I collected some leaves and thought it would be so easy. I watched some videos as well. Wrong. Not easy. Lowered expectations. You can go so far to do intaglio printing and photo lifting with these Gelli plates; but I barely got started. Easy cleanup, small area production. Google "Gelli monoprinting leaves" and watch videos to see some possibilities. If you learn from mistakes, there is great instruction! Should be VERY easy, but I was humbled.
