Well, we’re all amiss – me for not posting this post yesterday, and, dear readers, none of you pointing that out. But we’re here now, so let’s get to it! Yesterday evening, we played with mini lint rollers, bits of thread, string, wool, felt, chunky glitter, salt, and lots of paint carefully brayered onto Gelli plates. Sorry, no process video or step-by-step pics this week, but here’s the finished page:

The inspiration

I can’t find my inspiration reference any more, but several YouTube videos are showing rollers with string tied around them. Roll them through paint on a paper plate, then roll them across your paper for pretty patterns. Then there are one or two that take this a step further with elastic bands around the fluffy paint rollers to make the patterns. And finally, there are a couple that refer to lint rollers and using the innate stickiness to pick up all sorts of other bits and bobs.

The experimentation

First off, getting to the sticky bit of my particular rollers was tricky enough… There was tape and non-stick paper, with a diagonal peel-off. Once discovered, it’s easier for the next layers. I started with simple sewing thread, wrapping it around several times to get some crisscrossing as well. That done, I used a brayer to spread a thin layer of acrylic paint on my Gelli plate, then tried rolling the lint roller over it to pick up the paint. Only the roller didn’t roll; it scraped. I had to hand-roll it instead. The issue was the same when transferring the painty roller to the pages in my journal.

I was, frankly, disappointed with the result. The cotton lines were there, but thin and insubstantial. I transferred paint a couple of times more, worrying that I’d have to find another theme for the session.

It was only when I unwrapped the now unneeded cotton and peeled away the now painted lint roller layer to get to the next one that I realised I had a super inverse of the pattern I had just applied. The technique had redeemed itself! I decided to persevere with more items, keeping the peel-offs to use later.

The stuff to stick

I scoured the studio and house for things that would be light enough to stick to the lint roller and potentially paint absorbent to transfer to the journal, or paint resistant to create the pattern on the sticky paper strip. Here’s what I used:

• Acrylic yarn
• Roughed up thin jute twine/string
• Sewing cotton
• Small pieces of acrylic felt material
• Chunky glitter
• Salt
• Crumpled tissue paper

Other things to try:

• Seguins
• Decorative ribbon
• Coarse fabric (e.g. hessian)

The stuff to deal with the sticky stuff

Once you get to sticking down the lint roller strips with their painted patterns, you’ll notice that the areas without paint on are still sticky. I used matte multi medium to both glue down the strips and to then go over the top to seal everything in and stop the stick.

My spread shows one option for sticking them down – cutting them into strips parallel to the long edges and then assembling them as shown. Last night, there were several different ways used: cut into long wavy thin strips, filling corners, making squared off blocks and an assortment of all of them. All four were different once colour choices, patterns and placement of both were taken into account.

Next time

On 4th May (Bank Holiday Monday) from 7:30pm, the next art journal session will be taking ‘wrinkle resist’ as its technique/theme. If you’d like to come, please book a place to make sure there is one. It’s £7.50, all materials are included and journals are available to purchase for £2 if you don’t have something suitable.