Printing workshop

Today I am sharing some of the prints I did when I took an online class at the start of the year about gelatin printing. The class was a lot of fun and run by Linda Germain (http://www.lindagermain.com/workshops/). It was called Making monotypes. This is not the typical gelatin plate printing that you see in the mixed media world. We did make gelatin plates to print on but the art making was very different. We were making finished images, not backgrounds.

I have not done any printing before so it was a big learning curve for me. I absolutely loved the class and will use what I learned in the future. I found it easy to follow and learn from the teacher. There were loads of videos, mostly short so I didn't have to spend a lot of time watching them. I did get better results as the course went on and as I got more used to the way the inks worked.  It is a skill that takes practice to master but I feel like I learned enough to keep experimenting and learning as time goes on.

We used plants and other objects to make our first prints. I thought it was fun looking around for things that would make good prints.

Another technique we learned was making our own images. I did make mistakes along the way but it helps me to never do that again. Can you see the bottom print where one layer was printed upside down, lol?

 We learned how to make prints more interesting with extra layers.

More experiments with nature printing.

A series of prints I made at the half way point of the class.  I was experimenting a lot with colours and layers throughout the class. It helps me find the colours that I liked the most.

One part of the course I really liked was drawing our own images to print. I loved doing birds. 

 We learned how to make a print with a border. It is more difficult than I thought and quite hard to keep the border clean.  It is a skill that gets easier with practice. 

 We experimented with printing on different types of paper. I liked printing on textured paper a lot. This was a lithograph paper and it took the inks really well. We also printed onto book paper.

Using multiple colours and images to make a complete picture was one of the main skills we learned.

 I seem to be making a lot of pictures with birds in them lately. The birds that live in our street are a major source of inspiration to me.

I don't only use birds though. All of these prints are beginner prints but I can see the potential of this art form. I had so many ideas as the class went on. I will be practicing a lot.

I will recommend this online class to you if these types of monoprints appeals to you. I found the attention given by Linda was more personal and more often than any other class I have done. She was always there to help and made many extra videos addressing problems that came up as we did the course.  Linda did limit the number of people that could sign up for the class at one time so she could respond to everyone as needed. I think that was a great idea.

This was my final online class for a while. I have decided that I need to do more of my own art this year, as well as more of the other projects that I have been putting off for a while. I will still be sharing the creative things I do here, it is something I love to do.