Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Gel Medium Exploration

Okay, it's official. My new favorite adhesive is gel medium! I LOVE this stuff! I've seen blog posts, magazine articles and collage art books mention its use in collage, but I hadn't decided to give it a try until just recently. Gel Medium is scrumptious, and you can do so much with it! Extend acrylic paint's drying time, change the TEXTURE of acrylic paint, glue down collage elements, blend inks into a coating of the stuff on your art piece... the list goes on. And I plan to do a lot more exploring of Gel Medium in the future.


Here is an ATC, using an image from Vintage Resources (it's a lovely site and appreciates a donation for your use of thier images). I inked the white cardstock with blue and green inks, cut out the image and attached her with a thin smear of Liquetex brand Matte Gel Medium. Then, I applied another tiny smear of gel medium to the lower part of the ATC, over the photo image and blended blue ink into it while the medium was still slightly wet. Then I stamped the text and swirls with red and black ink and let it dry.



This lovely little girl image is from Oxford Impressions, stamped with black ink onto matte photo paper, hand-colored using a sponge & blue dye ink and attached (with gel medium) to a brayered and stamped background. The egg and "dreams" are likewise stamped and attached. No "fancy" stuff with blending inks into wet gel medium - just straight adhering to the cardstock.

I really love this Gel Medium stuff! I have the matte formula, and I think I'll have to go get the glossy formula, too!

7 comments:

Aparna said...

This is so interesting! I must go browse in the local art supplies shop to see if they have it. Your ATCs look wonderful - the blended blue ink of the first one is a beautiful effect. TFS!rdtap

Michelle said...

You did a great job, Flo! I love all of them, but the egg one is my favorite!

Cindy Elliott-Park said...

Great going Flo
now I have to play with mine
and it sits on the table all the time
cindy in NY

Art By Wanda said...

Beautiful atcs!!! Yes, gel medium is fantastic and now that you've tried one kind of medium, you won't want to stop until you've tried them all :-)))

Anonymous said...

These two are amazing. Looks like you had a lot of fun doing them. I really like the first ATC with the lady on it with the rose! that would make a great purse :D lol.

Love you!

Anonymous said...

One of these days i really want to watch you put one of these things together. You're descriptions of your methods are wayyyyy over my head, but the end results are awesome!!!!

Anonymous said...

thanks for the interesting information