ritablocksom2.blogspot.com: More Gelli Prints

Ingrid's Bubbles

Gelli Plate Printing is just simply too much fun! I love the squishiness I can engage in while making these mononprints. I've shown some examples before but didn't really go into detail about the process, so here goes. There are two options with this technique, buy your own plate made by GelliArts, which is my preferred method because it is reusable , durable, and stores at room temperature, or make your own, which may be less costly but is time-consuming, somewhat frustrating, and generally not as successful for the kind of impromptu work I do. You do store those in the refrigerator. You have to prepare your gelatin surface several hours before (the day before is best I've found) and with the handmade gelatin surface, you ruin the risk of it breaking. Mine did and while I'll say it wasn't the end of the world, the cracks made for interesting texture in my prints, once it started to crack there was little I could do to stop that from spreading. And of course, those cracks are permanent and will appear in all of your successive work. The only way to avoid it is to make another plate. Again, while not hard to do or expensive, I fear I'd lose my creative edge while making another batch.

Learn about and order gelli plates at their website, www.gelliarts.com, and I'd encourage you to read their blog to learn more about this highly creative activity, or watch a YouTube video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRg1YQFi-pg. You can just do a search on YouTube and you will find a wide variety of video how-tos on this fun and rewarding technique.

Here are some images of gelli prints, just to entice you...

I used a variety of paints, cheap leftover acrylics, watercolor, heavy body fluid acrylics, anything goes. I did find that the paint I preferred was directly tied to the consistency of my gelatin surface. The thicker paint was a little harder to use on my handmade surface if it wasn't allowed to set up overnight.

Overprinting adds color

I used stencils and stamps, kitchen utensils, freezer paper masks, feathers, shells, cookie cutters, any kind of marking tools I could find to imprint into the painted surface. You just don't want to cut into your surface and damage it. I found that if the gel was not properly prepared, my metal cookie cutters were more risky than with the manufactured surface. Can you tell I liked the prepared gelli plate? Yep. Gave me the consistency I was looking for with the product so that I could focus my attention on the creative aspect. And creative it is! I've always been attracted to color and mess (was i a mud-pie maker as a child? Do you really need to ask?!) And of course with this technique, the more I played, the more I played. Dinner? Can you say take-out?