Mixed Media Monday - Guest Brand Ambassador Camilla

  Happy Monday & Shiny New Week! 

Today I am back with another Mixed Media Monday and I am delighted to have another guest joining us please give a warm Uniko welcome Camilla Nordqvist. 

Camilla has been a customer of Uniko since opening day. How do I remember this? Well, Camilla was the first customer to order all those years ago and as a small business owner, it's kinda one of those things you never forget! 

With age my short term memory might be a little wooly here and there, but as each order that comes in gives me this warm fussy feeling and I do a little happy dance inside, names of customers (usually) stick with me. 

Anyway, enough of my rambling, let me hand you over to Camilla...

Hello,

A few weeks ago Beverley kindly asked if I wanted to create a mixed media project for Uniko. So I decided to pull some prints from my gel printing plate and make some colourful tags. 

The gel plate is a super versatile tool that you can use with different kinds of mediums and tools. You don’t even need special tools, some of my favourite things to use are bubble wrap, cardboard and different caps/lids. If you’ve never worked with the printing plate, it’s very addictive and an afternoon passes quickly when you’re building up texture, playing with different techniques and colours. I recommend to go to YouTube and let yourself be inspired by the many talented artists there.

I normally use acrylic paints on my gel plate, but I’ve recently started playing a lot with alcohol inks. Some of you might have a gel plate in your stash but don’t want to buy new inks, but maybe you have refillers for your alcohol markers? They work very well on the gel plate. For my tags today, I have only used Copic refillers. They work the same as alcohol inks. 

Another great thing with the gel plate is that you don’t need yupo paper to pull a print. You just add a layer of acrylic paint on top of the alcohol inks; this will ‘lift’ the alcohol inks off the plate and transfer them to your choice of paper. I use a smooth, thick white paper (250 g/m2) to pull my prints.

Add your colours to the gel plate. Use a brayer to spread them a bit or use a straw to blow them around (don’t suck in!). Let dry. If you want, you can create your own pattern with stamps (the tags with arrows, flowers, leaves and paisley patterns were all stamped directly on the gel plate). Let dry. Then apply a thin layer of acrylic paint with the brayer and pull your print.

My final tag is a bonus tag, made from all the colourful scraps that were on my desk. Shame to throw them away! The flower is made with a Tim Holtz die.

Thank you Beverley, it’s been a pleasure and a privilege to create a mixed media project for you!

Uniko Clear Stamps Used:

Accent Essentials: Arrows (sadly retired)
Explosion!
Explosion! Additions!
Flower Power #7
Marvellous Mehndi
Paradise – Leaves
Simply Said Birthday (sadly retired)

WOW! 

I for sure am inspired. Mainly I want to go and get me a gel plate - haha! As would you believe I don't own one. I am really enjoying seeing Uniko clear stamps used in different ways and with different media. It's also been a delight to see some loved but sadly retired clear stamps still being inked up.

I hope you have enjoyed todays feature and a big THANK YOU to Camilla for inspiring us all. 

Crafty Hugs