Playing With Gelli Plates and Doodles

Rainy days and gloomy days are great days to pull out your Gelli plates and just get messy!

I decided it was the perfect day to finish the project that is actually due tomorrow for the Scrapping 4 Fun Challenge. The challenge this time is an Anything Goes Challenge…with doodling.

The sponsor for this challenge is Di’s Digi Stamps.

I have several cute images that I’ve purchased from Di’s Digi Stamps, but I didn’t want to doodle on any of them!

I doodle all the time, but those are things that I usually share on my blog. I also don’t often share my mixed media projects. They are very personal and generally reflect my mood for the day. Those are usually creative pieces I just do for myself in a journal.

I decided that I would start with creating some backgrounds with acrylic paints and my gelli plates. I look forward to playing with these goodies and always end up with at least 20 backgrounds that I then have on hand for other projects. It’s nice to have a stack of backgrounds that are uniquely my creations to play with later.

I added some stenciling with some stencils that I purchased a few weeks ago from TCW…The Crafter’s Workshop. I love their selection of mixed media materials.

I also pulled out some stamps from STAMPlorations to use as a jumping point for my doodles.

I pulled this background because I knew I wanted to do some flowers and I really liked the yellow and green. I used one of the stencils from TCW with Rusty Hinge distress oxide ink and one with the Hickory Smoke ink. I always like to include a stamp or stencil with words or handwriting and that’s the one I used with the gray hickory smoke ink color. The stencil is called

The rusty hinge was used for a dragonfly and some gear-like images.

I added some white splatter and then stamped on the Be the Exception sentiment from STAMPlorations. Then I pulled one of the face images from the Fierce and Brave stamp set and I stamped the floral from the Bloomfully: Sparkle stamp set directly next to the face.

Then I started doodling. I added some curvy veins in the leaves. I added some curvy lines for hair, and I added the one Zentangle I remember to 3 different places on the image to create a visual triangle.

I also did some doodling around the edge of my piece and used some hickory smoke ink to cover the white edges. I added it to a black mat to give it a nice frame effect.

I actually created a darker piece with a lot more leaves and florals doodled next to the face. I added the splatters in several colors after I doodle so it’s hard to see the doodling.

This piece turned out a lot darker and actually represented my mood for the day. The day started out sunny and then got gloomier as the thunderstorms moved in. All of the doodling you see on this piece next to the STAMPlorations face is my doodling. I did not stamp the florals on this. I created my own. I actually like this piece quite a lot, but I’m never sure how other people will feel about this.

I often find myself doodling flowers, leaves, shapes and so forth and filling them in with more doodle shapes and shading. Some people really make amazing doodles! Check out Pinterest and get inspired. Get yourself a notebook and some journaling pens or markers and just enjoy!

The green and yellow piece doesn’t feel done yet. I definitely want to do more work on that one. I deemed it done for today and ready for the challenge, but I will pull it out on another day and add more layers and more mixed media.

What will I do with these?

Sometimes I put them in frames and hang them up and sometimes I put the in my art journal. I like playing around with layering things and seeing what I can come up with. It’s so very relaxing!

We would love to have you play along for a chance to win some free digis from Di’s Digi Stamps!

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