Studio Snippet #24: Found Texture & Learning from Your Mistakes

My son says he wants to be a garbage man when he grows up.  I think it's mostly because of the cool robot arm that the garbage trucks around here use.  But, sometimes I think it might be my influence.  I do looooove garbage.  It has so many uses for art!  In this week's Studio Snippet, I'm waxing poetic about the magic a bit of corrugated plastic packaging can do when combined with the gelatin plate. Watch the video for more:

Here are the papers I made in the video:

Lots of delicious texture!

Here are the key takeaways from the video for you:

• Initially, I had too much paint on my gelatin plate, resulting in a less defined print.
• I, personally, like having more white space in the print, which indicated to me a need to remove more paint from the plate with the chocolate box. I experimented with fluid acrylics – because they're thinner — to see if that got me the results I wanted.
• This is a reminder not to be discouraged by failures but to learn from things that don't go as you intended.  I always learn more from my mistakes than my successes. It's all about trial and error.
• Analyzing my work helps me to understand what I like and what works, guiding my next steps.  This is something I talk about a lot in Design Boot Camp.
• Gelatin printing is not random; it's about understanding paint, color, opacity, and the materials you press into the plate to achieve controlled and desired results.  I want to scream this from the rooftops.  It's not about being surprised. 

If you want to learn more about gelatin printing, check out my online class, A Year of Gelatin Printing.  It's packed with over 200 videos, covering everything you need to know about gelatin printing, and as a bonus, it has 14 bookbinding projects!

Thanks for stopping by!