Workshop: Sue Smith - Gelli Printing and Collage

A wonderfully relaxed workshop with Sue. She recapped her demo, showing us how to use the gelli plates to produce sheets of colourful textures. This involved placing dots of acrylic paint onto the gelli plate (a rectangle of solid gel), rolling it out and then placing items with interesting textures (leaves, corrugated card etc.) onto the paint layer, then pressing on sheet of deli paper (light, almost tissue paper with a waxy surface on one side) to pick up the still visible paint. Once this was done, the textured items could be removed and another layer of paint rolled on. A fresh sheet (or an already printed sheet) of deli paper would then be pressed on to pick up the textures. Those who have worked with mono prints would have found similarities in the process. We spent the rest of the morning experimenting, producing a good selection of textured papers. Messy, but fun.

After lunch, it was a question of assembling our pictures, starting with a reference as inspiration, a drawing and a plan. Patches of suitable texture were glued on and then watercolour ground was brushed around the edges so that washes of watercolour could be applied. From that point, it was a question of building up layers of colour, pattern and texture to provide a rich surface.

There were no finished pieces produced in this workshop, but we all went away with new skills and exciting works in progress. An excellent day.