Shelter - DC

Renilde, a wonderful painter and blogger extraordinaire came up with this week's drawing challenge, 'shelter'.  As someone who has used a house symbol in her work for years, I seized the theme naturally, and found it a great subject for monoprinting on the early Christmas gift my mother gave me: a Gelli plate.

These monoprints are all done on a 9x12 gelli plate using acrylic paint.

I found that I liked the way my Golden acrylics performed better than the Liquitex brand I got on sale recently.

I stayed up far too late last night working into my monoprints with watercolors and inks.

The acrylic acts as a resist, and the possibilities are ENDLESS!

This is an example of a 'ghost'print - what happens when you pull a second print from the plate.

Sorry about the quality of these photos - no natural day light available around here right now...  (also sorry to be a bit tardy in posting my DC).

I am using freezer paper to mask out my houses and ladders.

The circle was made with a selvage strip of fabric.

Monoprinting is one heck of alot of fun, and working on gelatin - as Linda Germain does - or the Gelli plate which is sort of a permanent gelatin plate - makes it possible to do so without a press.  Linda's blog is packed with generous how-tos and tutorials, plus her own art which is vastly inspiring.  Gelliarts also has a blog with many tutorials and loads of inspiration.

As I sat in the pool of warm light at my dining room table last night happily coloring my prints, I reflected on the comfortable shelter our home is.  Outside the snow came down, while me and my pets were cozy inside.  Grateful?  YES - absolutely.