I have been greatly enjoying exploring printmaking on my gelli plate lately! As a book and paper artist, I have loads of reclaimed books that I have found over the years or have been gifted to me by family and friends. Needless to say, I am never at a lack of material to pull prints!

And despite spending A LOT more time at home, I have not been feeling inspired to create. As a creative person, not actively creating is NOT an option for me. So I have been wiping the dust off my creative muscle and hitting the studio with a sense of play—making art for the sake of creating rather than obsessing over the end product.

With my printmaking process, my absolutely favorite mark-making tools are simple objects found around the home (such as thread spools, skewers, bubble wrap, etc.) or items that I make using fun foam, toothpicks and corrugated cardboard. Add paper from vintage books and you have endless possibilities for one-of-a-kind collage papers for artist books, abstract panels and more!

In the above prints, I used several types of processes to create the grungy effect. First…and this is the most important thing to remember, LAYERS. My best prints come from printing adding layer after layer of paint. The bonus of using acrylic paints when printing is that you can keep adding layer after layer of paint until you achieve the result you desire.

Are you interested in learning how to achieve these effects? Seeing the tools that I use? How to make them? Where to buy fun (and cheap!) mark-making tools?

Starting the week of February 8th-28th, I am going to share some of my favorite inside tips on making funky, grungy prints using reclaimed papers and handmade tools. Is there anything in particular that intrigues you about my creative process and want to know more about?