I have ordered a roll of Tyvek® from Material Concepts. I really love how durable the stencils are when they are cut from Tyvek®. I never thought that I would have the patience for cutting intricate stencils.

But as you can tell by this wall of prints I have been cutting a lot of stencils.

Today I printed some simple one color cards with the houses and trees on the hill stencil.

I used neutral tone card stock and cyan speedball printmasters water based ink. I like how the holes in my gelatin plate created white spots in the print.

If you would like to explore gelatin printmaking with tyvek stencil check out current workshop.

Fall is a good time to find thin sturdy grasses for printing with the gelatin plate.

When you are looking for good grasses and weeds to use as masking stencils look for:

• very flat
• very thin
• good spaces between the branches
• size that will work well with your plate
• sturdy – so it does not fall apart on your plate

I always gather 3 to 5 pieces of different sizes, so I can have some variety and repetition with my imagery.

The grass above has very interesting branches, but it was pretty fragile. So I probably will only get a few uses with it before it falls apart. I printed the image on long strips of paper. This is one way to vary a simple impression – change the paper size.

Another way you can make a simple impression interesting is to embrace and use the brayer marks as part of the design.

If you would like to transform some of your prints into gifts and you would like some help, then sign up for the online class Printed Gifts. It is available to you right now. This gives you plenty of time to make some holiday gifts.

Read the details on the printmaking workshop page.