Hi there! Gelli Arts® has teamed up with DecoArt® for some ‘Summer Fun’, and I’m here today to share the video I contributed to their blog collaboration!

For the collab, each of the participating Gelli Arts® Artists was gifted a box of DecoArt® Americana Premium paints and mediums to play with.

The theme ‘Summer Fun’ made me think of summer days in the yard and of vacations abroad.

How-to

I’ve recreated a photo I found in Elle magazine. I started by sketching it on computer paper; then I scanned the sketch to reverse it, and to print multiple copies.

I used the multiple copies to cut several stencils of the scene, each to use with one or two print colours. The stencils (and cut out masks) also helped with printing multiple layers.

I mixed the DecoArt® Americana Premium paints to create colours that (kind of) matched the original photo, and I created texture plates by applying Texture Medium to scrap pieces of cardboard with a Gelli Arts® mini printing tool.

The ‘Summer Fun’ theme also reminded me of colourful dresses, so I decided to use another photo from the same magazine as a reference to draw a lady onto computer paper.

I painted her head first. Then I used Matte Medium and gel printed tissue paper to collage the multicoloured dress.

Once the collage was dry, I pasted the lady onto the gel printed scene with the same Matte Medium, and then I enhanced the print with shadows and added details using paint markers and coloured pencils.

Preserve summer memories

As mentioned, I used photos from a magazine as a reference to create my gel print, but you could also use a personal photo as the jumping off point instead. Wouldn’t it be fun to record a summer memory this way?!

Visit the Gelli Arts® blog to see what the other participating artists have created.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful summer (or winter)!

Materials used

Gelli Arts® 12” x 14” gel printing plate
Gelli Arts® 8” x 10” gel printing plate
Gelli Arts® mini printing tool
4” roller

DecoArt® Americana Premium Mediums Matte Medium, Texture Medium, White Gesso
DecoArt® Americana Premium Acrylic Paints Burnt Umber, Cadmium Orange Hue, Carbon Black, Cobalt Teal Hue, Dark Grey Value 3, Dioxazine Purple, Phthalo Green-Yellow, Primary Cyan, Primary Magenta, Primary Yellow, Pyrrole Red, Quinacridone Magenta, Titan Buff, Translucent White

Please note that none of the links in this post are affiliate links! However, if you use the code MarshaV at check out on the Gelli Arts® website, you get 10% off an order over $20, and I earn a small percentage of the sale.

Stencils

StencilGirl® Products Letters on Box stencil by Daniella Woolf
AALL & Create Stencil #9 by Autour de Mwa, Stencil #12 by Autour de Mwa, Stencil #32 by Carol AndCo, #36 by Aida Domisiewicz

Other

Magazine (Elle)
Computer paper (A4)
Cardboard scraps
Paper (A3)
Tissue paper
Craft knife + cutting mat
2” roller
Scissors
Black pen
Pencil
Paint markers
Coloured pencils