I ordered a few colored plexiglass squares to experiment with. Since they’re so small, instead of printing with them, I just embellished them with acrylic and gold leaf. I ordered this blue color, a hot pink transparent and an opaque red. I really like the effect!
The guide is a heavy pencil drawing that I used for painting and printing the larger pieces. I am hoping to get multiple uses out of these, especially being able to focus in on details for smaller pieces.
Acrylic on Blue Transparent Plexiglass, by Stephanie Khattak.Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Blue Transparent Plexiglass, by Stephanie Khattak.Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Blue Transparent Plexiglass, by Stephanie Khattak.
I really enjoy these plexiglass prints, because it’s a great exercise in letting go and getting into the process without worrying about the outcome. As you can see, the plate doesn’t look much like the print at all. Part of the fun is filling in the abstract shape with pastels, and even gold leaf! I purposefully don’t try and make it look like what’s on the plate. Instead, I simply go where it leads.
Usually, I get two prints from a plate like this, lightly re-inking after each one as the paint does dry quickly. (I use a mix of block printing inks and acrylics and they both work fine.)
Initially, I had planned to wash and reuse the plates, but I find that I like the effect of the paint/ink on the plexiglass. Plexiglass is pretty inexpensive, so I will just keep it as another art piece.
I’m considering opening up for sales again later this summer. These would be hard to sell as originals because the pastel powder is hard to control, thus hard to ship. But maybe I could work them into an embellished print (fine art print) series. We will see.
