Texture of the Week: Lego Bricks

We have A LOT of Lego bricks in my home. My son loved playing with them for years and we have many large, difficult sets displayed in various rooms. Now my daughter is at an age where she is interested in Lego bricks. 

Before I dive into using bricks for gel printing, I just want to comment on how different my children are in terms of Lego. My son generally preferred building sets, the harder the better. He would sit for hours going page by page through the instructions while listening to music in the background. 

My daughter is not very interested in instructions or sets. We've purchased a couple based on themes we thought she would like and it was like pulling teeth to finish the sets. She likes having the finished sets (and mini-figures) to play with, but she would much rather "free build". Lately, she has been into filling plates with small tile pieces to create colorful lines or patterns. 

Truthfully, we have several tubs of loose Lego bricks, so I may never need to buy her a set again. And it was in these tubs were I collected my bricks for my latest texture experiment.

I've generally used the stud side of Lego plates, or preferably Duplo bricks, because they are an open ring without a logo in the center. But recently I started wondering about building structures with the bricks and then printing the shapes. 

The tricky part of this printing material is the smooth surface. Because of that, I tried to wait a few more seconds before placing my brick structures on my gel plate loaded with paint. I didn't want the paint to dry, but I wanted it to get just a little bit tacky so the bricks wouldn't be as likely to slide across the surface.

On my first print, I had a little trouble with sliding, but not too bad. The bricks didn't remove much paint, which was fine and I liked the outline around each structure.

On my second print, I didn't have trouble with sliding, but was surprised to see how much more paint the structures removed from the gel plate after getting coated with a little paint on the first pull. 

Truthfully, this shouldn't be a surprise. Part of what I love is how my gel printing textures change over time. A fresh piece of corrugated cardboard vs. a well-loved piece results in a completely different print. 

With this in mind, I decided to rearrange the bricks for my final print, so that I'd be printing with a combination of clean and paint-covered sides. 

I think this one had the best results. What do you think?

And, in case you are wondering I used Liquitex Quinacridone Burnt Orange (mixed with a little white for the last one), as well as deli paper to create these prints.