This is not...

...what I intended working on today. I had some Faber Castell gelatos and some other different gel pens. But when I came to try and use them on the gel plate for gel plate printing, they didn't work.

It says on the Faber Castell website that their gelatos work on the gel plate, and there is a You Tube video demonstration on it. Alas, it doesn't work for me.

So, that was my plans awry for today...

I looked at more Faber Castell ideas for their gelatos, and general You Tube videos. It appears to be a good idea to gesso your paper before you use the gelatos. I have quite a few sketch pads where the staples have gone rusty, so I thought I would take the staples out. Get as much rust off the paper as possible, and then use white gesso. And when dry, staple the sketch book back together.

But the first lot of gesso I got out of the garage was almost solid. It was an expensive one and should have been fine. So I had to chuck that one out. I found another gesso, a really cheap one from The Works, and that was perfect. So I gessoed one side of the paper, but it is taking awhile to dry because I don't have the central heating on very high because of my dry eyes.

I realised the gessoed and reassembled sketch book wasn't going to be ready in time to use today. So, I got out some Stabilo chunky watercolour crayons to see if they would work on the gel printing plate. The colour was very intense, and as long as I sprayed the gel plate first with a fine water mister I could work the Stabilo watercolour crayons on them.

This photo is of the entire selection of Stabilo crayons that I have, but it looks like I didn't pick up a white when I bought them.

The pictures I did in order are left to right, going downwards. The colours are quite intense. I began to get a bit more control of what I was doing.

I will have another go tomorrow morning with these Stabilo crayons on the gel plate, then finish the gessoed sketch book, and hopefully work on that on Tuesday.

That's my plan!

Thank you for your lovely comments and love.

Take care x