Printmaking Unleashed by Traci Bautista

I absolutely adore Traci Bautista. I love her energy and her art, she never fails to inspire me. A few months ago, she asked if I would be willing to help spread the word about her newest book, "Printmaking Unleashed." Oh my, you need this book. It is overflowing with techniques and mixed media inspiration. I have a love of all things printmaking, and this book had some techniques I have never tried. Woo hoo!

Traci sent me a printmaking kit to go along with the book. I thought I'd show you what I did with a couple of the goodies from the kit. One of the great things about Traci's book is it shows you many ideas for printing with common materials.

First, I chose a couple of pages to work on in my journal.

Here's a Dina-thing…I NEVER do a an art journal page from start to finish in a sitting. I work in an organic way, experimenting with backgrounds, wiping extra paint on pages, blotting ink on pages, etc. When I go to work on a page, I usually have something there already…color, texture. So, for this I chose two pages in my journal that had some color and texture. The page below had some ink pressed, as well as painted layers. There's even a partial drawing at the top (I was demoing something in class and used that page to scribble what I was talking about).

I forgot to get a "before" picture of the second page I chose…I was too distracted by the awesome stuff in Traci's printmaking kit. Oopsie! From her kit, I chose a great piece of plastic with a circular pattern.

I have been experimenting with paint sprays. What I do is take an empty mister bottle, and squeeze in some paint (I am of course using my Dina Wakley Media paints by Ranger). Then I add about the same amount of water and shake well. That way I have an opaque paint spray that is permanent.

I sprayed over the plastic with my white paint spray.

Then I picked up the plastic, flipped it over, and printed it onto my second page a couple of times.

Ohhhhh deliciousness!

See how the print in a neutral color (white) helps tie together the disparate background elements?

Next I sprayed pink paint spray over some mesh and then flipped it and printed it on my second page. I love working like this…I end up with TWO pages with just a small amount of effort.

Last, I used the circular plastic canvas and Turquoise paint spray.

Here are the two backgrounds. The first is stenciled…the second is printed. Two for one!

On the stenciled background, I added a stamped woman from my Face in the Crowd stamp set. Notice her hair…I love to change the hairdos on my stamped women.

On the printed page, I drew a woman and added some journaling.

I can't wait to use more of the goodies from Traci's kit and practice the techniques in her book. Happy printing!