Review of 2023 in pictures

Here’s a gallery of prints and images from this year.

My main highlights from this year was having work accepted into The Real Public Art Show (Stockport Open), the first Bury Open exhibition and the 102nd Stockport Art Guild exhibition.

2024 marks 10 years since I started this printmaking project / blog, and in that time I have created a catalogue of printmaking which I am going to present in a future exhibition. The project is not over yet, as I will be producing some new artworks in the coming months. Watch this space 👀

By the way have a happy and relaxing Christmas and here’s to 2024 and more creativity. Cheers 🥳🎄☃️🎇🎁

Abandoned Recreation

I’ve been working on a small series of gelli plate/matt medium prints depicting the abandoned pool hall that was once a cinema in its heyday. There’s a stone sign above the entrance which reads ‘The Wellington’.

I am naming the series of print’s ‘Abandoned Recreation’.

On one of my recent photo walks, I photographed an oval shaped boarded up window which I have used as a framing device for my some of my prints.

I use acrylic paints in my Gelli printmaking and for these set of prints I have experimented with textures such as bubble wrap and stencils. On top of the gelli prints, I have added using Matt Medium to add a high contrast black and white reverse laser print. I reverse the image if there is text in the image so the text appears the right way around when the laser print is glued face down to the gelli print.

The results have been amazing and unique as each print is slightly different as not all the transfer sticks to the paper once the excess paper is removed through the process of soaking the acrylic print in a bath of water and after 5 minutes soaking removing the paper from the print by rubbing off the paper gently with your fingers.

Finally, once the prints are throughly dried out, you cure and seal the prints by applying 2 coats of acrylic varnish.

Pool Hall Gelli Prints

These are two Gelli transfer prints I recently created depicting the abandoned pool hall off the A6. I recommend using the Gelli Arts printing plates which I sourced from a local art shop. Using Photoshop Elements, I created a montage of two photographs taken from one of my recent photo walks and combined them to form a new composition. I converted the images to a high contrast bitmap and then printed them off using a laser printer.

I added a dark coloured water-based ink layer using black ink (you can also use acrylic paint).

I applied a reasonable quantity of ink to the plate using a roller. I then placed a laser print of the building onto the inked surface and lightly pressed on the back of the paper once flat with the palm of my hand a few times trying not to press too hard to ensure the image transferred to the gel plate.

After a 30 seconds of drying, I then applied a new layer of light blue water based ink this time to the gel plate with a roller over the black ink.

I then applied some fresh cartridge paper to the gel plate and rubbed / burnished the back of the paper covering the whole paper to ensure all parts were rubbed using my the palm of my hand and fingers.

Finally, I removed the paper to reveal the finished print. This method of mono-printing can be a little hit and miss. Technique is the key to getting the results you want.

Have a look at the video below which demonstrates the laser image transfer gel printing technique.

Source: Gelli Arts YouTube channel