2016 #9 Travel Journal {by Anneke de Clerck}

 2016 Topic 9: Mono Printing

Hi everyone Anneke here.

Tonight I'd like to share with you a post about gelli plate printing. I love little books that have colored inside papers. Gelli plate printing is a great way to quickly create/print a stock of beautiful pages for all kinds of books, journals... 

I worked with my A4 size gel printing plate, PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics and a few stencils to make a travel journal. I'm planning to take this book with me on my trip to France later this year. I'll fill it to the brim with notes, printed Instagram pics, tickets and other memorabilia..

Let me walk you through the steps.

I started by folding 3 sections from PaperArtsy Smoothy 240grs cardstock. I've cut the A4 sheets in half (lenghtwise), folded each strip in two (to A6 size), then nested the pages into each other 3 by 3. 

Next I folded a cover from a strip of firm paper. I've made 2 folds to create the spine. The width of the spine depends on the thickness of the sections and of what you want to do with the book. As I want to put some pics and memorabilia inside I provided some extra space.

For the printing I used 2 circle stencils and a chevron stencil. I also die cut a few circles out of firm paper to use as masks. I worked with the following paints: Snowflake, Sherbet, Candy Floss, Pixie Dust, Sugar Plum, Caribbean Sea, Mermaid, Zesty Zing and Bougainvillea. I prefer to work with a limited series of colors and stencils, this helps me to create/print coordinating pages.

Showing all the printing steps here would lead me to far. I'll highlight one favorite technique. For this technique I start by applying 4 colors of paint to the plate using my brayer. I put a  stencil on top and press that stencil into the paint by putting a paper scrap on top and rolling over it with my brayer.

On the picture bellow you can see the effect on the plate, ready for printing!

That's the way I did the prints.

 

These are the finished pages.

 

I added prints to the front and backside.

On this page I did some masking with the large die cut circles. I created the vertical lines by pressing corrugated cardboard into the paint.

 

Each page is the result of lots of printing, lots of layers...

 

After printing I added extra accents using stencils. Here I used the PaperArtsy PS023 stencil.

Here I worked with the PaperArtsy PS008 stencil and Bougainvillea.

 I created the pink flower with the PaperArtsy PS009 stencil and Pixie Dust.

Here I used the PaperArtsy PS008 stencil again in combination with Limelight.

Again the PS009 stencil and Limelight.

I colored the cover the same way as I did the pages. After printing I did some stamping with stamps from the Hot Picks 1503EZ plate. 

Hot Picks 1503EZ 

  

For the background stamping I used Limelight, Caribbean Sea, Mermaid and Candy Floss paint. I did the black stamping with Archival Ink Jet Black.

 I sewed each section to the cover separately with a 3 hole pamphlet stitch binding.

 I used a needle with a blunt tip and waxed cord.

And of course I will further decorate the pages during my holidays.

At the beginning of my printing session I had some trouble to achieve color coordinating pages. To fix that problem I just had to apply a few more layers to the pages I didn't like. Luckily gelli plate printing is all about adding layers. The more layers the better the result 

In my opinion Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics work well on the gelli plate. As the paint dries quickly I could continue printing and never had to wait in between layers. 
As you can see I used a soft color palette in order to be still able to write/draw on the pages.
I hope you'll take part in the challenge this time, gelli plate printing is so much fun!
Happy creating!

Anneke

Blog: http://somefiddlingonthekitchentable.blogspot.be

What a fantastic travel journal, so nice to have something special and unique to take with ou on your holiday. The smoothy card is perfect and with the addition of paint it makes a really nice weighty journal that can stand up to a little wear and tear as you travel. ~Darcy

We would love to see how you interpret this Mono Printing topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #9: Mono Printing, on this page HERE.

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas,  particularly if you were inspired directly by their post. All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Mono Printing link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, May 15th 2016. The winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.