“Somewhere Right Now” by Guest Artist + Author Mary Beggs Bosley

Hi there! It’s Mary Beggs Bosley here again to share with you how I made these gel printed collages.

Gel
printed papers have been the cornerstone of my mixed media collage art for the
past several years. I love how they can create unique color blends and textures
that can’t be achieved any other way. I recently self-published my children’s
book, “Somewhere Right Now”, utilizing many of my gel printed collages for the
illustrations.

I
rarely throw away any type of painted paper. And I’ve even challenged myself to
create collages using leftover gel printed scraps, like this tropical bird
collage that is featured in my book.

I
used this ghost print to create the sea turtles pictured above. I drew on top
of the print with a Micron pen and cut them out, layering them with gel printed
coral atop a watercolor and salt background. This went on to become the cover
of my book.

I have found that even my lightest “ghost”
prints make great foundations for my artwork. I will often draw directly on top
of them with fine black pen and add color with paint, pens or markers.

Another
example of utilizing my ghost prints. I drew several poppies on top of this
pink print and collaged them, along with stems on top of a gel printed
background with additional drawn poppies.

I
used various colorful gel print scraps to create these lizards, adding details
with black pen and colored gel pens. Leaves were also created form gel printed
papers, layered with pen drawing details.

Sometimes,
the printed papers created with my Gelli® plate are so unique and colorful, they
require very little in terms of added detail. Such is the case with this cut
beetle artwork.

This
Lorikeet was created by making a pattern to utilize gel printed scraps of rice paper, cardstock and printer paper.

My children’s book, “Somewhere Right Now” includes a variety of my artwork using gel prints

“Somewhere Right Now” parallels the daily events of a young
child with the activities of animals around the world at that moment. It is
available on Etsy here .