Gelatin Prints

Artist statement:

For this project, we used gelatin to create prints. You could use recycled material to put it over it. For the extended version of the print, I decided to use paper clips and draw flowers around the paper clips. This way it looked like a garden or little flower pots. I really liked the colors of this ink because it reminded me of the ocean. In Maine, we have some beautiful beaches and places where you can see the ocean. My family used to visit Acadia every year, we have so many traditions including picking sea glass and seashells. The colors remind me of the trips to the beach and the long adventures through the outdoors. I probably should have drawn seashells and sea glass shapes around the extended print instead of flowers but the flowers are a common theme in my artwork. I love doing little sketches of flowers and making them as simple as possible. Sometimes simple is more.

For this project, we used many materials. Such as you can see in the material print that there is a strange circular texture. I achieved this by using bubble wrap. I decided not to put as much ink on the surrounding print because I thought it would look a little more fun if I focused and put a spotlight on the bubble wrap pattern. For the extended print, I used paper clips as my material. I decided to use a lot of ink for this one. I thought it would be interesting to put both colors on the print but not in a specific way, just dabbing both colors in different directions until it was covered over the paper clips. I used a black art pen to draw the flowers and plants. I love using a black pen on artwork… I think of it as “humbling the art”

In this project, the process goes with the flow. I did not want it to be too crisp. I didn’t necessarily plan anything out, I just grabbed all the materials I knew I wanted to use and got to work with no real goal in mind. I think this method can be fun for some projects. It was definitely fun for this project. If I were to do this project again I would use the same colors but I would use something to make wake shapes out of and then I would draw the outlines of sea glass shapes and shell shapes. Then I could get an even beachier vibe. Maybe, I would even use something grainy to add as a sand texture. I think in the end I liked printing with linoleum much better than printing with gelatin but either way it was still a fun experience!