HOW I CREATED MY MINI OWL AND RACCOON PRINTS

Hi Everyone! 

Here are two plates that I made as part of the recent 5 Day Challenge that I created for one of my groups.  I don't usually do animals although I have done a couple in the past.  I will include those at the end of this post for you to see.

I REALLY like Owl eyes so I found the Owl one really fun to make. This is how I went about making the plate.

First of all I painted the beer coasters with white paint.  I used a very soft brush on some and used a rubber roller on some of the others.  I found I liked the soft brush ones better because the roller leaves a texture, which is nice for some things but not what I wanted here.  I found an image I liked and sized it to fit on the computer, changed it to greyscale and printed it out.  I then transferred the design onto the painted coaster.

The areas that I wanted dark I cut into the coaster to remove the first layer of card so that the ink there would absorb and print dark.  I had to be very careful as my coasters are very thin and I didn't want to cut right through. Next I added white gloss paint to the areas I wanted to wipe clear of ink and print very light. The rest of the mat was left as is to print in a mid tone.  The final thing to do was to use a very sharp pointed tool to scratch in to make the illusion of the feathers.  

I used basically the same process on the Raccoon.

The next step was to give it a coat of the golden Shellac to seal the plate and protect it.  I like to do this as the golden colour gives me a good idea of how it will print and I just think they look nice this way.  It's exciting to put the shellac on and see how it looks! 

When I printed the Owl out I was not happy with some areas so I modified them a bit. I printed it first in indigo blue.  Next I inked it up in Indigo, wiped it and then rolled it with a gold coloured ink on top. Here is how they looked when printed.

I will print it again A la poupe to see how that looks.  It will be tricky because it is so small but I want to try it.

I haven't printed the raccoon yet as my life has been crazy busy the last week or so with family and grandchildren visiting.  I hope to get to it later this week and I will post it then.

Here are a couple of pics of the only two other animal prints I have made.  They were made for the Chinese Year of the Horse.

Please let me know if you find this helpful or interesting. Don't forget too that my online course will be open for enrolment in a few weeks time.  I teach in detail how to do all these techniques and lots more.  Keep an eye out for the details.

Warmly, Susanne