Marbling on Hahnemühle Postcards

Marbling on the gelli plate! I am totally loving this process - it is so much fun and you never know how it is going to turn out. Life on the wild side! Hahahaha! Let me show you what I did!

I am in the process of moving posts over from my last website. I am going to lose everything on that site in about a year, so I am moving it one post at a time. Today's post is one I made last year. I apologize if you already saw it, but I am sure there is something you can learn from reading through once more. 

I began by bringing out this gelli plate. Or gel printing plate - it is from Gelli Arts. All my gelli plates are from Gelli Arts. And the one I use for postcards is the 5" x 7" plate because it is the perfect size. 

The perfect size for the cold pressed watercolor postcards from Hahnemühle. I had two cards I had not done anything with yet, so that is what I grabbed. These cute little tubes of acrylic Amsterdam paint came from Joggles in a giveaway. Part of their birthday celebration. I love how Barb does giveaways - it is always something I really, really need. Hahahaha! And sometimes she sends me extra. I pulled out my 2" brayer which you don't see in this photo. Sorry.

I wanted to try all the colors Barb sent me, so I picked out three for this postcard and squeezed out a small dot of each color. You don't need a lot on a printing plate. 

Using my brayer/ roller, I made short tap and rolls with the color. Tap the brayer down into the color and roll about 1" spreads of color. You can see in this photo how I just rolled here and there and grabbed whatever color I happened to be near. Being careful not to really mix the colors together, but keeping them as separate as possible. 

And once I got to this point I stopped. You can still clearly see all three separate colors and the plate is covered with a thin layer of paint. 

I took one postcard and placed it right down into the middle of the color and smoothed it down with my hand. Sometimes I use the brayer to roll back and forth over the back. This time I just used my hand. 

And lifted. The color is kind of strange looking here because of the lighting in my room at the time. You can see it better in the next photo. 

This is what it really looked like straight from my scanner. The lines you see came from the brayer. Because I didn't want to smooth out all the color and blend it into one - I have roller lines. I love the texture they make and think they add to the marbled beauty in this postcard. If I had rolled this on the back side with my brayer instead of using my hand - I wouldn't have had those white places. But I like the grunge they bring to the piece so I am ok with it this way. 

I had a second postcard and I wanted to try that gold color, so here you go. Notice there are bits of color from the first postcard still on the plate. I just leave them there and sometimes they will get grabbed up in a future print and look marvelous. 

Tap and short rolls to get some coverage but not mixing the color. I love how the pink at the top left looks like a hand. Hahaha!

This is the plate when I finished the brayer work. See that long streak from top to bottom towards the right side? That is from the edge of the brayer. Some people don't like that to show in their prints. I am totally ok with it.

You can see that streak at the right hand side here. And on the left at the top - see those green lines? Those are from previous paint that I left on the plate. And along the bottom, too. I just really like when I get that in my prints. It adds character. 

Here is that same postcard straight from the scanner. I love it! I had so much fun making these. I may actually go back and add some collage work. Still deciding. Actually I may use it in my daily journal. That's a great idea!

The only color I hadn't tried was the dark blue. Also known as Greenish Blue - highly technical name Amsterdam gave it. Haha! I grabbed a piece of 5" x 7" printmaking paper to be ready. 

Here is my color marbled out. Just two colors. I wondered if they would turn to purple. They did not because I was able to mostly keep them separate with my marbling technique. 

Print pulled. I got some green from previous pulls. And a little yellow or gold towards the top left. Cool!

Here is when I scanned it. I will tangle this with a white pen, probably my Sharpie paint pen. I do love all the texture and bits and pops of color here and there! 

The Amsterdam colors I used are: permanent red violet light, azo yellow medium, light gold, brilliant green and greenish blue. Courtesy of Joggles. Thanks, Barb! And happy late birthday! 

I was cleaning out drawers - again - trying to make room for some new product and came across this. From the old days when I was tangling for one of the first books I did with Ina and Simona. Tangle It Coloring Book. Fun times. These were fun pages to make. I may need to do some more. In my spare time. Hahahahaha!!! Thank you for reading along. You guys are the best!

To find a list of dealers carrying Hahnemühle products - like the postcards -  in the United States and Canada, click here and scroll through to find one near you.