Mixed Media Gel Printed Fish Bowls

Here is a fun way to use your gel printed botanical pages to 

create fish bowl or terrarium collages.

 Gather some leaves - the greater variety of silhouettes, the better

 I press mine in an old dictionary. The kids get the biggest kick out of the fact that this is how we used to look up the spelling and definition of a word before the internet. 

 Add some paint to your Gelli Plate - Remember that this will be the color of your plants. With that in mind, you might want to use light or warm colors for a nice contrast.

 Now add some paint for the water or background of your fish bowl or terrarium. Lay down some leaves and make a print using the same paper as above. 

Use a template to trace for the fish bowl. You could use any vessel shape. We used metallic markers and added white pen to create highlights in the glass. You can use different pens and markers to add more plants if you want. 

I had some Gelli Arts DIY Kits with 5 inch square plates. These were perfect to create 

small fish bowls following the same steps as the larger bowl. 

You can create collage rocks using gel printed papers 

or you can add them with paint or markers. 

 Some of my students created shadows under our fish bowls 

using chalk pastels with water and a paint brush. 

Just color an ellipse and spread it out with water for a watercolor effect. 

I offered a variety of ideas for creatures to create, cut and place in the fish bowls. 

You could go realistic, whimsical, cartoon or imaginary,

You can use leftover gel printed papers or create fish 

or creatures using white paper and markers.

We glued our fish bowls on watercolor paper. 

 This background was created using acrylic paint for the wall, watercolor for the table

and charcoal for the shadows,

You could create single vessels with painted backgrounds

using an 8x10 or larger Gelli Plate. 

 Added collage succulent

The pieces below were created by students, ages 5-12.

 6th grade

 Kindergarten

 Kindergarten

 3rd grade

3rd grade

6th grade

A special thanks to Natalie at at smART class for her Fabulous Succulent Garden art lesson here https://elementaryartfun.blogspot.com/2018/05/succulent-gardens.html
and artist, Clair Bremner for her Create a Terrarium Artwork with a Gel Press art class on Skillshare for Inspiration.

Gel Printed Forests with Animal Illustrations

Phase 1 for our gel printed forests

 Phase 2

 Carlie - 3rd Grade

 Blake - 3rd Grade

 Brooke - 1st Grade

 Ella - 4th Grade

 Alexa - 4th Grade

Blake - 3rd Grade

Below are my experiments/samples

I never get tired of experimenting with gel printing. My students are well aware of this. 😄 So for this session, we created fantasy forests with my collection of pressed leaves and our Gelli plates (8X10 and 9x12). We created a colorful print (on card stock or watercolor paper) first followed by a reverse black silhouette using the leaves as a mask. This made the perfect backdrop for our animal illustrations. I allowed my students to create a full body whimsical raccoon inspired by artist, John W. Golden, a charcoal raccoon portrait, or other creature of their choosing. They could adorn their landscapes with other details: veins for their leaves, moon, stars or snow. Animals were then cut out and glued to their backgrounds. There are so many possibilities with this process!

Gel Printing Fun

I recently had the opportunity to explore the uses of Gelli Arts© DIY Kits with my after school classes. The children had a lot of fun creating cactus gardens and animals. These kits make great gifts for children and adults to create small works of art and greeting cards. 

 Everything needed to create your cactus garden or llamas & flamingos

is included in the kit.

 Charlee working on her cactus prints.

 Alexa pulling a print for her llama background. 

 Just a little bit of fine black pen

for some finishing touches.

You can read the whole blog post and information on buying these DIY Kits Here.

Somewhere Right Now

Somewhere Right Now is now available on Etsy

Here's the link to my shop:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/MaryMakingArt

Jellyfish with Masking Fluid and Watercolor

 Nika - 7

 Avri -5

 Ellie - 5

 Delaini - 5

 Zoey - 7

 Leighton - 7

 Shiloh - 9

Madelyn

I have done jellyfish art lessons using bubble prints with rice paper and with chalk pastel and watercolor here and here. And I Loved all the results. But this may be my new favorite jelly art lesson. This was inspired by Natalie at smART Class who used gloss medium. I didn't have any so I decided to improvise with masking fluid. I sacrificed some of my crumbiest paint brushes and had my students paint over their pencil drawings. These took just a short time to dry, so they were able to paint them in the same class. While the paint was still wet, they sprinkled their watercolor oceans with salt. This always lends a magical effect that the children just love. 

Once dry, I used a remover block to remove all the masking fluid and brushed all the salt away. They have a beautiful batik-like effect. A perfect summer art project!