Googie meets Gelli -- Retro 50s Design

I continue to indulge my Gelli plate addiction. And now my husband has given into temptation too. He bought his own Gelli Plate this weekend. We decided to try working on a shared theme for our practice prints -- Googie. 

No Autocorrect, I don't mean "Google." I mean "Googie" -- the Jetson-style design popular in the late 50s and early 60s, especially in California and the Southwest.

To start, my husband chose a Googie-inspired sign. I found Fabulous Fifties at the library, a large tome filled with photos of Googie-patterned products. These playing cards caught my eye.

To get a feel for the lines, I sketched the design. I left out the tiny bubbles -- too advanced for my skills, at this point anyhow.

I scanned my sketch and printed it on card stock. I picked up my trusty Xacto knife and, after a couple of false starts, produced a decent stencil.

I made many, many prints. Here are two worth sharing. I printed the Googie design on top of several other layers. 

The one below includes the trademark Googie "boomerang" shape.

I was happy with the results -- except for the objects flanking the bottle in the middle. They needed more definition. I grabbed a paint pen and started in.

I liked the white, but the black was too dark and opaque, making the print look flat. To recover the original depth, I added highlighting in the print below. It's my favorite.

What have you printed lately?

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